2023 marks the 20th year since the vines went into the ground at Burn Cottage Vineyard in Lowburn. Before that, this was just a hidden patch of rolling green against the scrubby, craggy, tan-and-black background of Central Otago. It might’ve remained so, had Marquis Sauvage and his wife Dianne not stumbled across it the previous year when they got sidetracked from a site-searching expedition in Australia.
How fateful that was—as was the decision to engage Ted Lemon of Littorai to plan the site. With Ted came the decision to plant this unique, secluded amphitheatre with a highly diverse patchwork of blocks that would be farmed biodynamically from the outset. The choice of Claire Mulholland, a hugely experienced, intuitive Otago local, as winemaker was equally inspired.
The prospect was so mouthwatering that you couldn’t blame Marquis for being impatient to see the first results. He had to wait until 2009 for the inaugural vintage, and the fruits of those decisions couldn’t have tasted sweeter. A new Central benchmark was born.
What a beautiful wine this is, showing the poise, detail and energy of the 2023 vintage.
Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate
Burn Cottage Vineyard hasn’t erred on its way from there to here. You taste everything now as then: proper layers born of each year’s permutation of ten clones on ten blocks varying in steepness, elevation, orientation and composition from silty to sandy to gravelly loams. Pinot Noir of purity, energy and mystery; no wonder it resonates.
Some ten years ago, Australia welcomed its first Moonlight Race alongside a Riesling/Grüner blend, the former a 100% estate-grown wine these days, and the latter a single-site white from the off. Both are singular and unwaveringly satisfying, offering detail, texture, surprise and the ability to unfurl in the glass.
Central Otago was New Zealand’s standout region in 2023, and all three of these wines shine. Joining them is the ’22 edition of the newest arrival into the fold, the Sauvage Vineyard Pinot Noir from Bannockburn. You’ll find no winemaking fingerprint on this one, either, yet it manages to be both unmistakably Burn Cottage and utterly different from the home vineyard’s expression of Pinot.
From a distance, Central looks an unlikely place to grow beautiful wine, and Burn Cottage a series of uncanny coincidences. The composition is seamless, though, and seemingly written in the South Island stars.