2023 Prophet's Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir, Central Otago

The 2023 Home Vineyard Pinot Noir is grown on a pocket of pedogenic limestone, clay and schist. The wine is possessed of a mineral presence that is alluring to the point of thrilling, with a mineral seam of tannin that runs from the front to the back of the palate and out into the long finish. It draws the fruit flavor along with it, meaning I am left with a textural linger of flavor and shape long after the wine has gone. The wine is eminently red fruited and spiced, with raspberry seed, sweet pouch tobacco, crushed rocks, iodine in small measure, dried herbs and brine. The finish is almost as good as the lead-in, all elements of the wine working together in a swirl of cooperation and harmony. The beauty of the 2023s from Central Otago (and the South Island generally) has dawned on me, after tasting a huge number of them over the past six months. It wasn't presented as a vintage I should watch out for; rather, the wines speak for themselves. They have energy, detail, poise and life. The extraction management in the winery is extremely specific and sparing, meaning the tannins that we live with here in the glass are mostly vineyard-derived, and what is better than that? This is chalky, chewy and pliable, and the tannins are elongating and lengthening. Drink to 2043.

97+ points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, June 2025

A gorgeous pinot, this shows pure and focused strawberries and dark berries as well as lavender and sandalwood. Flint too. Medium-bodied with ultrafine tannins and a long, racy finish. It’s sleek and curated. Terrific. So drinkable now but will age beautifully.

97 points James Suckling, March 2025

It's a beautiful vineyard, this one. It's high, some 320–390m on a glacial terrace above Bendigo, on some of the oldest soils in the region, composed of clay and pedogenic limestone. Mid-ruby in the glass. Exotically spiced wild strawberry and raspberry fruits with a blast of cherry and hints of meadow herbs, sous bois, lightly smoked meats, earth, citrus blossom and dried rinds, poached rhubarb, lavender and crushed stone. Some biscuity oak and nutmeg on the palate, which shows a pleasing fruit weight and spicy vapour trail carried by a vivid mineral line onwards into the distance. Such great drinking. Drink to 2046.

96 points Dave Brookes for Halliday Wine Companion, March 2026

Dense purple fruit with, violet and floral sweetness over a perfumed and layered bouquet which manages to pull off elegance. The structure and austerity close in on the back-palate with an iron-rich intensity as the tannins firm up, finishing quite firm on the end. The grip needs time to resolve but there is elegance and flow here which will emerge in bottle. A powerful and sinewy pinot noir with a long and persistent, detailed finish, designed for cellaring. Drink to 2041.

95 points Stephen Wong for The Real Review, November 2025

The Prophet’s Rock Home Vineyard Pinot Noir is beautiful expression of the elegance to be found in Central Otago’s 2023 wines. The nose opens with pure sweet aromas of strawberries, raspberries and violets, with background notes of flint, spice and cured smallgoods. The palate is vibrant, detailed and taut, with chalky tannins in the driver’s seat on the long, persistent finish.

A Persian-style grilled quail with sour cherry and walnut is an ideal textural partner here: the tartness of the cherry echoes the wine's raspberry-and-iron edge, and the walnut's bitterness plays into the mineral, almost stony finish rather than smoothing it over texture meeting texture, which matters more here than a flavour match alone.

More about this wine

This is a single vineyard wine from Prophet’s Rock’s home in the Bendigo subregion of Central Otago. The 7.5-hectare site is certified organic and was planted 1999-2001 and features seven clones of Pinot Noir, with half a hectare devoted to Pinot Gris. The vines stand at 320–390-meter elevation in an unusual combination of clay and pedogenic lime, with a thick substrate layer of chalk.

The overall warm and dry 2023 season tapered off with a prolonged, cool autumn that preserved good acidity in grapes. The fruit was handpicked, destemmed and fermented using indigenous yeasts. The house style favours low extraction, with the small open top fermenters only plunged once during fermentation. The wine spends a total of seventeen months in oak barrels after the primary fermentation, 35% of which are new.

About Prophet’s Rock

Prophet’s Rock was established in the late 1990s and pays homage in its name to a 19th-century gold prospector, capturing the spirit of exploration and discovery.

Winemaker Paul Pujol joined Prophet’s Rock in 2005 and has been instrumental in shaping the approach that is grounded in respect for the natural characteristics of the vineyards and gentle handling of fruit, with minimal intervention at the winery. His CV impresses with experience and knowledge accumulated at the likes of Kuentz-Bas in Alsace, and Domaine Comte Georges de Vogüé in Bourgogne.