2022 Two Paddocks The Fusilier Pinot Noir, Central Otago

Gorgeously ripe with complexity, the wine shows dark berry, smoked game, tapenade, mixed spice, and cedar aromas on the nose. The concentrated palate displays a silky texture and a plump mouthfeel, wonderfully framed by chalky tannins that offer an excellent grip and structure, yet it finishes flowing and mouth-filling. Certified organic. Drink to 2037.

97 points, Sam Kim for Wine Orbit, November 2025

This vibrant and spicy pinot noir shows aromas of cherries, dried raspberries, sweet spices and some smoke. Medium-bodied with fine tannins. Precise and textural. Racy and full of verve, with a long, peppery finish. From organically grown grapes. Drink or hold.

97 points James Suckling, October 2025

There’s no mistaking the sense of site with this wine, the voice of place is clear [for me] with scents of floral perfumes and soft earth clay, a fine dried herb seam with layers of vanilla spice and sweet French oak. Taut and new still with tension from fine tannins and acid line, this holds the palate to allow the flavours of red berries, plum and wild black currant berries to add their voice and softness. Dry, plenty of fine textures and complexity. Lengthy and well made with best drinking from 2028 through 2038.

96 points Cameron Douglas MS, October 2025

Cherry red and youthful in the glass. Complex aromas of charcuterie, blue fruits, dried herbs, pot-pourri, sap and spice. Fine and focused on the palate, with a drive of red fruits, brambly sap, an earthy woodsiness and firm, grippy tannins. Real presence, poise and length here. Drink to 2035.

95 points Aaron Brasher for The Real Review, November 2025

Dried thyme and some stemmy whole-bunch adding complexity to the core of black cherry and dusty blackberry fruit. Savoury herb and toasty oak add top and base notes respectively, letting the round, mocha tannins coat the tongue from start to finish. Mid-weight and elegant in style, this is almost approachable already, but will be better in another year. Drink to 2034.

93 points Stephen Wong MW for The Real Review, December 2025

This wine greets with complex, heady aromas of dark fruit, with a full deck of high notes: flowers, smoked smallgoods, half the spice shop and bonus herbs, a bit of cedar, too. The palate is of medium weight, with the focused, plush and silky black fruit wrapped in textural, chalky tannins. Long and precise, with toasty oak adding spicy notes to the wonderful fruit flavours.

The smoked game and cedar notes here want something with real depth and a touch of char, while the chalky tannins can handle richness without getting weighed down. A Korean-style bulgogi with charred spring onion, or maybe a wild mushroom and chestnut pie if you prefer something vegetarian.

More about this wine

The Fusilier is one of the single vineyard wines labelled by Two Paddocks as ‘Proprietor’s Reserve’: small batches of exceptional fruit from outstanding seasons.

It is named in honour of founder Sam Neill’s father, Major Dermot Neill, a soldier in the Royal Irish Fusilier Regiment for twenty years before returning home to Dunedin, New Zealand, where he ran the family wine and spirit business, Neill & Co.

This is a 5.6-hectare Pinot Noir site planted in 2000 on rolling terraces with northern exposure at the western end of Felton Road and bordered by the Felton Road vineyard itself, as well as those of Terra Sancta and Akarua. Soils here consist of deep alluvial fans, with varying depths of silt, sand and gravel derived from the schist parent material.

The 2022 season started well but turned cool and wet in February. The latter half of the season turned warm, with an early accelerated harvest in the end bestowing growers in the area with excellent quality fruit.

The fruit for this wine was hand-picked and sorted through in the vineyard. Fermentation with indigenous yeasts and 82% whole-bunch inclusion took place over a total of 34 days: eleven days of cold soak, then twelve days at 20–33 degrees Celsius and a warm eleven days of post fermentation at 22–30 degrees Celsius, with the ferment plunged daily. The wine was matured for twelve months in medium and light toast French barriques of which 23% were new and the balance one to two years old. The wine was filtered lightly before bottling.

The wine is primarily of the 115 Pinot clone, with the balance made of the 667 and 10/5.

About Two Paddocks

Sam Neill started Two Paddocks in 1993 with modest ambitions and two hectares of Pinot Noir in the Gibbston subregion of Central Otago. That vineyard has since been augmented by three other small vineyards in the subregions of Alexandra and Bannockburn, all farmed organically by a team led by viticulturist Mike Wing. The minimal intervention winemaking is in the hands of Dean Shaw, who is consulted by Larry McKenna of Martinborough Vineyards fame.