• French oak
• Dried strawberry
• Subtle cedar
• Brooding & rich

"This is flatteringly classy. Sweetly seductive with savoury nuances, the wine shows black cherry, clove, cured meat, thyme and nutmeg aromas on the nose. The palate displays graceful richness with expansive mouthfeel, combined with finely infused tannins, finishing superbly long and engaging. It's seamless and multi-layered with stunning complexity, promising to evolve magnificiently. A majestic Pinot. At its best: 2027 to 2044" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Jun 2024

"Aromas of dried strawberry, sea shell, lemon peel, and hints of cedar. Hints of salt. Medium to full body. Tannic and so structured with a length and seriousness that is so impressive. Goes on forever. Powerful. Like Musigny. This will age forever" James Suckling Tasting Report 2024

The result is an elegant, sophisticated and seamless wine displaying the finest hallmarks of a great Martinborough Pinot Noir; brooding intensity, richness and depth of flavour. Whilst delicious in its youth, this wine will reward cellaring for many years to come.

Martinborough Vineyard is proud to present this sixth release of Marie Zelie, a hallmark Pinot Noir epitomising the winery’s pioneering style and impeccable reputation. This finest reflection of Martinborough Vineyard Pinot Noir is extremely limited in volume, with only 1,471 coveted bottles of the 2019 vintage made.

Our vineyards are all vertical shoot trained and hand pruned to a conventional two arm cane pruned system with 10-12 shoots per metre. During flowering, our viticulture team remove lateral and leaf pluck on the sheltered eastern side with shoot thinning to remove all double shoots. Post flowering, the fruit is thinned to one bunch a shoot. Shoulders and any late reopening bunches are removed at veraison. All fruit is hand harvested.

After a late spring frost, 2019 proved to be an excellent vintage in Martinborough. A wet early-summer allowed vines to bounce back and reach the top wire by Christmas. The traditional dry Martinborough summer finally arrived in January and carried through to harvest. We commenced picking fruit at the end of March and the beautiful conditions continued throughout harvest enabling us to finish picking by the first week of April, with all fruit picked in clean and ripe conditions. Overall the season produced excellent wine quality.

The fruit was carefully hand sorted and 90% destemmed before being transferred to 3T and 5T open top fermenters. The wine underwent a cool pre ferment maceration at 15°C for 5-6 days before a post ferment maceration of 8-10 days with 100% native yeast fermentation at a maximum temperature of 32°C, and natural malolactic fermentation. The wine was hand plunged daily and spent an average of 21-24 days on skins before being pressed.

The wine was aged for thirteen months in French oak barriques (21% new oak, Francois and Boutes). Five barrels were selected as the best of the best, then blended. The wine was lightly fined with egg whites before being bottled, unfiltered, on July 1 2020 for an additional four years of aging in bottle prior to release. Only 1,471 bottles and 20 magnums of Marie Zelie 2019 were produced.