Dark blackberry, wild herb, spice and intrigue aromatically. The wine then moves into a dense richly textured mouthfeel. Elegance, finesse abound holding the wine into a tightly knit package whilst will drink superbly in its youth will also reward those who choose to cellar the wine.

Two Paddocks was established in 1993 by Kiwi actor, Sam Neill, who was raised in the South Island of New Zealand, and still calls it home. Initially Sam bought a paddock in Gibbston and aimed to grow a small amount of his favourite grape – Pinot Noir – with the hope of producing enough wine for his friends and family.

Back then, Central Otago was in the very early days of winegrowing, so to buy and plant Two Paddocks was a huge leap of faith. Nowadays the region is 80% planted in Pinot Noir and has arguably been New Zealand’s most successful region with this variety.
Two Paddocks now consists of four small vineyards in the Gibbston, Alexandra (Earnscleugh) and Bannockburn sub-regions of Central Otago. The vineyards are grown within a holistic farming model, which aims to naturally recycle all farm animal and vine by products back into composts and nutrient rich soil enhancers that are then applied to the vineyards. Over time, this will make the Two Paddocks portfolio entirely certified Organic.

The flagship from Two Paddocks – an organically grown barrel selection from the estate properties.  In 2021 this wine was produced from the four Neill family Central Otago vineyards. These small sites are high-density planted in a range of clonal material cropped to under 5 Tonne per hectare with most vineyard practices carried out by hand.  As in the vineyard, the wine is hand crafted using traditional methods including a 46% whole bunch, indigenous fermentation and hand plunging.  Maturation is in French barriques for 10 months, using a mix of older and new (18%) barrels. Vegan friendly.

Vintage 2021 was characterised by climatic variation extremes throughout spring and early summer and then developing into a fantastic finish, with a long stable mid-summer / autumn warm period, right up to and over harvest. At the start of the season, a cold winter continued into a dry warm spring with steady vine shoot growth.  The grapes flowered over December 2020, which was warmer than last year but with intermittent rain that resulted in only half the vineyard blocks achieving desired crop loads. The first week of January saw a significant rain event and that set the vineyards up with optimum soil moisture levels for the rest of the season. There was some typical early and late in the season frost fighting, but the vine canopies stayed resilient and green with harvest staring a week earlier than typical on the 30th of March and finishing on the 22nd April.

Hand harvested, 54% de-stemmed and given a 7 day pre-fermentation cold maceration to extract colour and aroma. After an indigenous fermentation, with a single plunging per day, the wine was given another 5 days post fermentation time on skins. Wine is then transferred to 1-4 (18% new oak) year old French medium toast barriques for a 10-month maturation, before racking and bottling. Estate Vineyard composition: 31% The Fusilier - Bannockburn, 20% - The Last Chance – Earnscleugh (Alexandra), 15% The Red Bank – Earnscleugh (Alexandra) and 34% The First Paddock – Gibbston.

Drink now and up to 12 years. This wine will drink well in its youth and has the potential to age.