Sato La Ferme de Sato 'Sur Les Nuages' Pinot Noir 2021

Just stunning. In two weeks up and down New Zealand visiting their very best wineries, this was one of the wines that has stayed with me (and I’ll confess to putting some away in the cellar, although I am having great difficulty in keeping my hands off it). As close to wine of the trip as it could be.

‘Sur les Nuages’ means ‘above the clouds’ and this wine is certainly heavenly. Taut, precise, focused, and ever so balanced. Cherry pit notes, cassis, bergamot and floral notes. The balance really is knife-edge, the wine fresh and energetic, the flavors dance on the palate and the length is amazing. An exercise in restrained exuberance. Like drinking silk and lace.

As someone said, if this came out of a bottle labeled Musigny, it would have surprised no one. Ten to twenty years.