Palliser Estate Pencarrow Pinot Noir 2012 – $$
I spent the weekend with L and the kids over the hill in the Wairarapa, camping beside the Ruamahanga river at Morisons Bush. ‘Twas the Annual Artists Weekend: a camping tradition deep into its second decade, a reunion of friends new and old. We get together to talk, laugh, eat, drink, swim, make art and the occasional loud bangs.
This weekend, much against type, it rained for a lot of it, so not much art was created. P curated a datashow of hynotic visuals, which was the highlight of the visual arts. N made cocktails, and M and B made an delicious paella for 40…
Afterwards we all sat around the campfire and cooked marshmallows.
I enjoyed a few glasses of my favourite second label pinot – Pencarrow Pinot Noir 2012 – bought from the winery cellar door that afternoon. It was hard to get much sense of the smell of this wine, due to the plastic glass I was drinking it out of, and me sitting mostly downwind from a smoky manuka fire. But it had good concentration, generous ripe fruit and savoury flavour. 4
