Felton Road, 'Bannockburn' Pinot Noir, 2025
Felton Road, 'Bannockburn' Pinot Noir, 2025
- 75cl
- 13.7%
- Red Still
- Pinot Noir
- Organic
- Biodynamic
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Optimal drinking window: 2027 - 2038
Nestled in the rugged beauty of Bannockburn, Felton Road has become the undisputed benchmark for New Zealand Pinot Noir, and one of the leading lights in biodynamic fine wine production anywhere in the world.
“If Central Otago was the Côte de Nuits, then Bannockburn would likely be Vosne-Romanée and I’m going to hang it right out and say that Felton Road would be the top gun, the DRC.”
Nick Stock (JamesSuckling.com)
The entire production is estate grown, across four distinct vineyards: The Elms, Cornish Point (7.6ha), Calvert (4.6ha), and MacMuir (5.1ha), each farmed organically and biodynamically. Every vine is tended by hand, and every wine is crafted with minimal intervention, gravity flow, wild ferments, no fining or filtration.
Felton Road’s Bannockburn Pinot Noir is the estate’s regional blend, made from fruit across its four vineyards. Bannockburn, one of Central Otago’s warmest and most established sub-regions, where north-facing slopes rise from around 220 to 370 metres. The combination of hot, dry summers, very cool nights and long, dry autumns gives the Pinot Noir plenty of ripeness without sacrificing acidity.
What the critics say:
"A blend of Cornish Point, Calvert, MacMuir and The Elms. In it’s own way, this is kind of like a Barolo classico with its blend of vineyards. I like that Felton Road name the viticulturalist before the winemaker in their credits. A distinct dried rose perfume here along with rosemary and dried herbs, cherry and raspberry, baking spices and aniseed. It’s medium-bodied, a juicy and sweet attack of fruit, tempered by some more earthy and autumnal things, a fine-grained powdery grip to tannin, a sappy feel too, with some blood orange on a spicy finish of excellent length. A lovely and energetic wine. It drinks well now, though no hurry, and that perfume is quite something. Again, the best Felton Road Bannockburn I’ve tasted, or so I think"
The Bannockburn sub-region sits in a rain shadow within Central Otago, making it one of the driest and most continental wine-growing spots in New Zealand. Soils are dominated by fractured schist over clay subsoils, which drain freely but force vines to work hard and push roots deep. At around 200-300 metres of altitude, diurnal temperature swings of 15°C or more between day and night are the norm, locking in the acidity and aromatic lift that defines Central Otago Pinot. The result is wines with a distinctly mineral, iron-edged character that sets Bannockburn apart from the broader regional style.
Central Otago is the world's southernmost wine region of significance and New Zealand's only continental climate wine zone, sitting deep in the South Island's interior mountains. It earned GI status in 2002 and has since developed a system of recognised sub-regions, of which Bannockburn is the most celebrated. The appellation is defined by its schist soils, extreme diurnal range, and high UV intensity, all of which contribute to the deep colour, concentrated fruit, and firm structure that distinguish it from the cooler, more maritime Pinot regions of Martinborough or Marlborough.
The 2025 vintage in Central Otago is, at time of writing, the most recent harvest, and detailed analytical consensus is still forming. What we do know is that the region has been on a remarkable run of form through the early 2020s, and early producer reports from 2025 point to a season that largely continued that momentum, with a warm, dry ripening period helping growers achieve good phenolic maturity across the board. Central Otago lives and dies by its continental extremes, and vintages that manage to thread the needle between its fierce UV intensity and the cool nights of the Cromwell Basin tend to produce wines of real definition and freshness alongside ripe fruit.
Pinot Noir, as ever, is the one to watch. If early indications hold, 2025 should offer wines with the kind of taut red fruit and structural clarity the region does better than almost anywhere in the Southern Hemisphere. Expect them to reward patience rather than demand it. Most will drink well from 2027 onwards, with the best sites and producers likely carrying comfortably until 2032 or beyond. We'd watch this space closely as more bottles start arriving.
OUR GROWERS
Felton Road
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