2021 Dog Point Pinot Noir Marlborough 750 ml

Ivan and Margaret Sutherland might just be clairvoyant. 

When the Dog Point founders planted their first vines in the 1970s, Marlborough was a fledgling wine region. And when they added Pinot Noir in 1983, it was still long before many in the broader wine world would turn an eye from the region’s famous Sauvignon Blanc to its vibrant, intensely aromatic Pinots. 

Today, we’re all reaping the dividends of that foresight. From some of Marlborough's oldest Pinot vines—and its largest BioGro-certified organic vineyard—the 2021 Dog Point is lively and silky, seamlessly integrating earth-and-spice undertones, fine-grained tannins, and bright acidity. Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast each awarded it 94 points, the latter saying: “there’s lovely concentration and harmony here that makes this a solid cellaring choice…or a food-friendly drop now with some aeration.” 

Dog Point, which Jancis Robinson called a “seriously admirable wine estate,” has some big-time pedigree behind it. Ivan Sutherland met co-founder and fellow NZ wine legend James Healy at the iconic Cloudy Bay Vineyards. There, over the course of two decades, they helped engineer New Zealand’s stunning ascent on the global stage. 

In 2003, the duo broke off to start Dog Point. They knew the area’s clay-loam soils, glacier-carved hillsides, abundant sunshine (2,200 hours a year), and brisk ocean breezes were perfect for evoking the Pinot grape’s ripeness and phenolic maturity.

On a sun-kissed patch of land near the convergence of the Brancott and Omaka Valleys, the estate is an agricultural cornucopia, complete with vegetable gardens, orchards, beehives, olive trees, pastures, and native plants. They’ve employed a rigorous organic farming regimen since 2009, and those practices have produced lovely purity and aromatic complexity in their 2021 Pinot Noir.