2024 Pyramid Valley Pinot Noir, North Canterbury

Terrific aromas of black cherry and blackberry with lead pencil and spice follow through to a medium-bodied wine with a solid core of fruit and creamy tannins. I like the iodine and oyster shell undertones to this. Complex. Drink or hold.

95 points James Suckling, August 2026

This wine comes to us from the warm and dry Canterbury season that provided growers with moderate yields of well-ripened fruit. The particularly dry autumn concentrated flavours and contributed to slightly higher acidities.

The fruit was grown predominantly on Glasnevin gravels in the Good Family vineyard in Waipara, while the balance came from the Pyramid Valley’s new, 2000 to 2002 planted high-density Waikari Vineyard on clay and limestone soils.

Hand-picked the fruit was fermented with endemic vineyard yeasts in open vats with roughly a quarter included as whole bunches, and the wine matured for twelve months in French oak barrels of which a fifth were new. The parcels where then blended and left to settle naturally for six months on light lees before the wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

Enjoyable on release, it will keep well for several years if stored under good conditions.

About this producer

Pyramid Valley was established in 2000 by Mike and Claudia Elze Weersing and until 2017, the couple produced some of the world’s most exciting Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines from their tiny, high-density biodynamic sites. Today, the wines of this modern-day legend are made by the talented Huw Kinch and Pyramid Valley is part of Aotearoa New Zealand Fine Wine Estates, founded by Steve Smith of Craggy Range fame and Texan entrepreneur Brian Sheth.