Felton Road, `Bannockburn` Chardonnay

Felton Road is a legendary New Zealand wine estate located in Bannockburn, Central Otago, one of the most southerly wine-growing regions in the world.

In the late 1990s, British entrepreneur Nigel Greening was living in New Zealand. Among many eclectic interests, including jazz guitar and furniture making, he was a serious Burgundy collector and soon became captivated by the nascent Pinot Noirs of Central Otago. By 2000, through sheer determination, countless tastings and research, he had bought a vineyard in Cornish Point, as well as the original Felton Road Elms vineyard from founder Stewart Elms. Nigel is a self-taught visionary, and together with winemaker Blair Walter, he has built Felton Road into one of New Zealand’s top Pinot Noir producers. As Neal Martin puts it, “whenever there is a tasting designed to challenge the supremacy of Burgundy, it is usually a Felton Road that is ushered into the ring, floats like a butterfly and out-classes its bloated Old-World champions.”

Felton Road’s 34 hectares of vines are planted mainly with Pinot Noir, alongside a small amount of Chardonnay and Riesling. There are four vineyards, Elms, Cornish Point, MacMuir, and Calvert, each planted with different combinations of clones and rootstock, carefully matched to their soil profiles. These vineyards are nestled on gentle north-facing slopes at elevations between 200 and 335 metres, surrounded by high mountains up to 2,000 metres. Viticulture is carried out organically, and the estate has been certified biodynamic by Demeter. However, their approach goes even further than the strictures of certification, and sustainability is at the heart of everything Felton Road does, from vineyard to winery and beyond. In 2024, this commitment was recognised with Felton Road being awarded the 2024 Gucci Golden Vines® Sustainability Award.

Central Otago is New Zealand’s only wine region with a continental climate, rather than maritime. This brings the risk of frosts but has the benefit of low rainfall, low humidity, and high sunshine hours with large diurnal shifts. Blair Walter practices a gentle, minimal intervention approach to winemaking, assisted by a three-level gravity-flow winery. Each block is picked and vinified separately. The Pinot Noirs include a varying percentage of whole bunches, depending on the wine. Indigenous yeasts are used for all fermentations in small open-top fermenters. Tanks are punched down from one to four times per day. After pressing off, the wine is run by gravity to barrel in the underground cellars. All barrels are from Burgundian coopers, three years air-dried, typically 30% new oak each vintage and selected for their slow extraction and subtlety of flavour. The Pinot Noirs are neither fined nor filtered and are normally only racked once on the way to bottling.

The Bannockburn Pinot Noir is a blend of fruit from across the four vineyards, while the Bannockburn Chardonnay comes mainly from Elms, with 10% from Cornish Point. There are single-vineyard Pinot Noirs from Calvert, Cornish Point and MacMuir. Made in very limited quantities, the single-block wines come from small parcels within the Elms and Cornish Point vineyards.