£22–£23, The Wine Society, Booths supermarkets
I don’t normally do split vintages – i.e. recommend two at the same time – but 2012 and 2013 are both available and, although they're different in character, they're equally delicious. The 2012 is from a cooler year, but with an extra year’s age there’s a lovely suppleness and silkiness to the spicy, red cherry-perfumed purity and cherry cake and nutmeg elegance. The 2013 shows its youth with a more savoury, structured backbone, a little more intensity of sour cherry-fruit and an undertow of dark chocolate and toasted almond. Both wines have gossamer-fine tannins and delicate fresh acidity on a lingering finish. You could serve them with mushroom risotto, quail, pheasant, partridge, duck, chicken or ham, or scallops cooked with lardons, or salmon or tuna. To give a bit of background: Seresin Estate is cinematographer Michael Seresin’s beautiful biodynamic estate in the far north of New Zealand’s South Island. Biodynamic? Organic with bells and whistles. The vines are sprayed with herb teas, fertilised by cows, sheep and poultry in the vineyards and the vineyards hum with bees and birdsong. The wines are fermented with wild yeasts (not added cultures) and everything is allowed to take its time according to the natural rhythm of the cosmos and the seasons.
Seresin Estate Rachel Pinot Noir 2012/2013, Marlborough, New Zealand
£23 for the 2012, Booths supermarkets, £23.99, The New Zealand House of Wine, £28.55 Field & Fawcett; £22 for the 2013, The Wine Society.