Planning a Vertical Tasting of New Zealand Pinot Noir

5 days ago

2 min read

A vertical tasting follows one wine through several vintages. It creates a conversation between seasons, allowing the vineyard’s recurring qualities to appear alongside the differences of each year. With Caroline’s Pinot Noir, that conversation takes place within the same Clos Ostler monopole in the Waitaki Valley.

Choose a manageable question

Three vintages can be enough for an illuminating evening. You might compare a younger release with two older bottles, or choose consecutive years to explore how the seasons differ. Availability and condition should guide the selection. A bottle with uncertain provenance can introduce a variable that has little to do with its vintage.

Read the estate’s archive before the tasting, but keep the reviews out of sight for the first round if you want to form your own impressions. Record which notes were made at release and which describe later tastings. This helps prevent a young wine’s description from becoming an expectation imposed on a mature bottle.

Prepare for comparison

Use similar glasses and modest pours, with water available. Bring the wines to a comparable serving temperature and consider the condition of each bottle before deciding how to open or decant it. Older Pinot Noir may be delicate, so a fixed decanting schedule for every bottle is rarely a useful rule.

Choose an order, explain it and remain willing to return to the wines. Starting with the youngest provides one reference point; beginning with a fragile mature bottle may give it more attention. What matters is that each wine has a fair opportunity to be understood. Keep a little in the glass to see how it develops.

Write before discussing

Ask each taster to note fruit, savoury detail, acidity, tannin and finish before sharing opinions. Add a sentence about the overall impression rather than reducing the evening to scores. The most revealing observation may be a recurring perfume or texture that appears in several vintages.

Introduce food after an initial comparison and notice what changes. At the end, return to the archive and discuss where your impressions agree or differ. A vertical tasting is a record of particular bottles on a particular evening. Repeating it later adds another layer, and the differences are part of its value.