The Central Dozen: A Showcase of Central Otago Pinot Noir The Central Dozen is a curated case of twelve standout Pinot Noirs from Central Otago, New Zealand, each chosen to highlight the region’s quality and diversity. From sub-regional character and vineyard site to winemaking approach, these wines tell compelling stories in every glass. Selected via […]
2025 – a rare double header vintage The 2025 vintage was climatically one of our easier vintages in recent years but this was offset by some uneven canopy growth across the vineyard. Overall, the growing season was slightly warmer (977 GDD) than average (943 GDD) and rainfall was below normal for much of the season. […]
150 years of vineyard history The first vines at Grasshopper Rock were most likely planted before 1870 making them some of the first vines planted in Central Otago. Those vines are now long gone however in 2003 vines were replanted making this one of the oldest vineyard sites in Central Otago to still be growing […]
2024 – a good vintage for Grasshopper Rock With a strong El Nino event confirmed in spring 2023, the 2024 vintage felt a little more unpredictable than normal. Fortunately, cold snaps, frosts, wind, and a hail event fitted nicely around a warm dry flowering and a dry and sunny, albeit cool, ripening period. We were pleasantly […]
The 1997–1998 El Niño was regarded as one of the most powerful El Niño–Southern Oscillation events in recorded history and we now know the 1998 vintage produced some of the greatest and longest lived Hawke’s Bay red wines. NOAA (National Oceanic & Atmospheric Ass) states in a Dec 2023 blog, “There’s a 54% chance that this (2023/24) El Niño […]
Here we look at the interesting story behind Pinot Noir and why Grasshopper Rock is dedicated to Pinot Noir. Pinot Noir is one of the world’s oldest known grapes and its origins go back centuries to northeast France and most notably the Burgundy and Champagne regions. It seems likely Pinot Noir originated from the domestication […]
Recent reports on New Zealand’s annual vintage statistics have made waves, highlighting the wine industry’s remarkable success. The total value of New Zealand’s wine exports (year to May 2023) has surged by 25% compared to the previous year, reaching an impressive 2.4 billion. With this surge, wine has now become New Zealand’s fifth-largest export, attributing […]
Older Grasshopper Rock vintage goes from strength to strength Grasshopper Rock’s 2013 vintage pinot noir keeps on giving ten years on. Back in 2013 when this vineyard was only 10 years old we did not know with any certainty how well the wine would age and we certainly did not anticipate the wine would still […]
2023 vintage season started and finished cooler than average but summer was warmer than average. Overall it was a warm year. When the last grapes are picked for the season, we take time to reflect on what the vines have delivered and try and understand what the defining moments for the vintage were. This 2023 […]
Accolades Fine Wines of New ZealandClassic Wine of New Zealand – Michael CooperTop Wineries of New Zealand 2019, 2020, 2021 & 2022 – The Real ReviewWine Classification of New Zealeand – 2 Merits – The Real Review Reviews Bob Campbell MW – The Real Review – 95/100Bright, fresh pinot with vibrant black cherry, violet, fresh […]
At Grasshopper Rock we are big fans of the annual Open That Bottle Night Open That Bottle Night is the one day of the year to make sure you open that bottle. That bottle is the one you have saved, been given, or carefully purchased for a special occasion but still haven’t opened. The last […]
“A new flagship label from this highly acclaimed Alexandra producer” When this Block 6 Pinot Noir was first reviewed, Bob Campbell MW rated the wine 95/100 and Raymond Chan rated the wine 19.0/20. Five years later Bob Campbell MW has raised his rating to 96/100. “The wine has become mellower and more complex”. Why make […]
An exciting new wine classification has been launched. The Real Review Wine Classification comprises the greatest wines of New Zealand and Australia with an outstanding track record of a decade or longer. Each wine has demonstrated its quality in blind tastings over a period of at least ten years. The classification is a comprehensive, independent, and […]
“Even when the weather isn’t good it’s still wonderful. I grew up in San Diego. Every day is the same. Blue skies, no clouds, little rain, slightly colder (but not much) in the winter; blue skies, no clouds, little rain, slightly warmer (but not much) in the summer. There are no seasons. It is meteorologically monochromatic […]
2022 was the most enjoyable harvest for many years with no weather pressure and perfectly clean and ripe pinot noir grapes. Everyone is excited about the 2022 vintage. The vintage was slightly warmer than average. 972 growing degree days versus our average of 942. However, as always what really matters is what happens month by […]
Competition Awards 92/100, International Wine Competition (London)Accolades Fine Wines of New Zealand 2020Classic Wine of New Zealand – Michael CooperTop Wineries of New Zealand 2019, 2020 & 2021 – The Real ReviewReviews Bob Campbell MW – The Real Review – 95/100Hottest vintage on record has produced a fruity and accessible pinot noir with ripe cherry, […]
2021 vintage, in summary, was a cool spring and January followed by a warm dry autumn which perfectly ripened a smaller than average crop. The grape volume was down by 20% as was the average bunch size. We picked a week earlier than normal due to the excellent ripening period and a smaller crop. Covid-19, […]
On an autumn day in Central Otago the air is crisp and clear and the colours vibrant. It is the ideal time to be airborne and capture some views of Grasshopper Rock. Our friend Roger Bennett captured these images while out on a CAA approved flight. I will point out the local geography and history […]
SummaryThe 2020 was one of the more difficult vintages due to the cold weather and the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown. Spring started normally but weather events turned against us. An unusual atmospheric phenomenon known as Sudden Stratospheric Warming turned everything upside down. A hailstorm hit the vineyard on 16 November and contributed to some flower damage. […]
Competition Awards GOLD medal 95/100 Decanter World Wine AwardsGOLD medal – NZ Wine of the Year Awards Accolades Fine Wines of New Zealand 2019Classic Wine of New Zealand – Michael CooperTop Wineries of New Zealand 2019 and 2020 – The Real Review Reviews Bob Campbell MW – The Real Review – 96/100This is a classic Grasshopper Rock […]
A thunderstorm on 16 November released small marble sized (10+mm) hail onto Grasshopper Rock damaging young shoots and florets. Fortunately, the outcome is only light damage and long term effect negligible. Hail of this severity is not something we have experienced before. With the potential to create significant damage in the vineyard, especially if hailstones […]
Another excellent vintage 2019 vintage season was overall a warm year but started with hard frosts in September and October and ended with hard frosts in early April. The 13 October frost during budburst was particularly hard but the vines were well protected from damage by our sprinkler frost fighting system. Flowering and fruit set […]
Climate change – Central Otago’s story Since we established Grasshopper Rock in 2003, I have flown many times between Auckland and Queenstown. I always sit in a window seat to make the most of the high-altitude views of this beautiful country. The flight path is usually just west of Aoraki/Mt Cook and when the weather […]
Competition Awards GOLD Medal 96/100 Decanter Asia Wine Awards 2018TOP100 & BLUE GOLD Medal – Sydney International Wine Competition Decanter Asia Wine Awards 2018 – GOLD Medal & 96/100An intensely juicy fruit core of black cherry and plum with lifted exotic spice and an earthy undertone. Velvety tannins and vibrant acidity with a mineral soy finish. Lengthy […]
Grasshopper Rock’s vines are now 15 years old and we have good reason to celebrate. The vines have achieved a stage of maturity where the roots have fully colonized the available space and the trunks are now thick and strong with greater resilience, delivering richness and complexity of flavour and character. We have perhaps not yet seen the greatest wines […]
Summary. An interesting and very successful season. 2017/18 was our most extreme season yet. Serious frosts in the weeks before budburst followed by unprecedented heat mid-season and finishing with a -5° C frost in mid-April. Not every year thanks! One of the hottest Central Otago summers on record. The heat, early flowering and ripening and […]
A vertical tasting of back vintages has provided an interesting and important insight into how well Grasshopper Rock Pinot Noir ages. In November 2017, Raymond Chan and his partner, Sue Davies, visited Grasshopper Rock with . We drove from Queenstown and had time for a good catch up before having look around the vineyard and […]
Limited release This wine comes from a special part of our Earnscleugh Vineyard. With vines now over ten years old the grapes in this part of the vineyard consistently show a distinctive character which we decided to capture in 2014. The soils here are the lightest in the vineyard being sandy silty loams over sandy […]
Reviews Bob Campbell MW – 95/100Aromatic with juicy cherry, plum, mineral and spice flavours. A backbone of fine, ripe tannins perfectly supports subtle fruit. Elegant, supple wine with cellaring potential. Aug 2017 The Wine Advocate #228 –Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW 90+/100Medium garnet-purple in color, the 2015 Earnscleugh Vineyard Pinot Noir gives fragrant notes of crushed red and […]
2017 was the coolest vintage for at least 15 years. The unusually warm September was followed by a good October and then a period of below average temperatures through until late February. Fortunately flowering was good but the cooler weather during berry development meant bunch sizes were below average. 90 gram average bunch weight which […]
Awards GOLD – International Wine Challenge 2016 (London)GOLD – Sydney International Wine Competition5 STARS – Michael Cooper’s NZ Wine Buyer’s Guide 20165 STARS – Bob Campbell MW, The Real ReviewSILVER – Decanter World Wine Awards 2016SILVER – Hong Kong International Wine & Spirit Competition 2015SILVER – Royal Easter Show Wine Awards ReviewsMichael Cooper – Michael Cooper’s Wine Buyer’s Guide to NZ Wines – FIVE […]
Grasshopper Rock is one of the southernmost vineyards in the world and is situated at 45.25 degree south latitude. We have always claimed that there are no vineyards any further south in the world and have found no evidence to suggest otherwise. At the International Cool Climate Wine Symposium (ICCWS) held in England in May […]
Summary:The strong El Nino produced more cool south and southwest weather than normal in the spring and early summer. Fortunately the weather was fine during flowering and fruit set was good. The cool spring meant bunches were a little smaller than recent years, which is not a bad thing. In February the heat really picked […]
From the Central Otago News desk of Pam Jones: An Alexandra basin vineyard is believed to have made the biggest wine sale ever recorded in Central Otago to an international airline. PAM JONES reports. A record breaking wine sale by Earnscleugh vineyard Grasshopper Rock will put new eyes on Central Otago’s wine industry and create […]
There is a high probability of a cool spring and lower yielding vintage in Central Otago this year. The challenge will be to achieve good yields on the vines but there is no reason for the vintage not to be of outstanding quality. Expect a colder than average spring, especially October to December, followed by […]
Summary The 2015 vintage season has again produced some excellent fruit in good quantity. The season started cooler than normal with October and November temperatures below average and a number of frosts requiring frost fighting. The cool conditions slowed flower development. December warmed up and provided a small but perfect window for the critical flowering […]
Central Otago’s total vineyard area and production has stabilised at of around 2,000 hectares with Pinot Noir production being 77% of the total tonnage. Wine production from Central Otago cannot significantly increase until at least 2020 because of the lag time between planting and wine reaching the market. For Pinot Noir grape production, the time […]
2015 Pinot Noir tonnages are down based on New Zealand Winegrowers statistics. Overall Pinot Noir is down 29% but some regions have been affected worse than this by the cool spring of 2014. Total Pinot Noir production is down from 36,499 T to 25,763 T. With Marlborough accounting for around 50% of NZ Pinot Noir […]
Riedel launches new Central Otago Pinot Noir Glass Here is a brief update on my original article written in June 2013. The original article, unchanged below, includes links to interesting video and articles from the development period. Two years on from the first comparative tasting, Central Otago Pinot Noir now has its own unique glassware […]
Awards GOLD MEDAL – Decanter World Wine Awards 2015BLUE-GOLD MEDAL – Sydney International Wine Competition 2015SILVER MEDAL – International Wine Challenge 2015SILVER MEDAL – Air New Zealand Wine Awards 2014Joelle Thomson – TOP 20 Pinot at Central Otago Pinot Noir new release tasting Sep 2014Best Buy – 4.5 Stars – Cuisine Magazine, May 2015 ReviewsDecanter World Wine Awards 2015Fine, pretty nose; […]
By September, last year’s canes were pruned and a single cane tied down for the 2014 vintage. Apart from some early winter frosts and the odd snowfall, winter was relatively mild and pleasant for pruning. Soil temperatures were ahead of average leading into what looked like being a very early bud burst. A cooler period […]
Influential UK Decanter Magazine has named Grasshopper Rock 2012 one of New Zealand’s Top 20 Pinots. Written by Bob Campbell MW the September 2014 feature highlights the stylistic differences between each of the country’s five main regions, and the key estates and wines to watch including Grasshopper Rock. Of his Top 20 Kiwi Pinots, he stated “I selected every New […]
This week Grasshopper Rock received yet another gold for its Pinot noir bringing the total to 18 golds. The last time I wrote about medal tallies was in 2010 when I wrote a blog titled: “Grasshopper Rock’s thoughts on wine competitions”. I said “Our mission has been to consistentlyproduce quality Pinot Noir. This has driven our site selection, vineyardmanagement and winemaking. Wine […]
The weather this 2013/14 season has not been altogether normal. We had a great spring and flowering followed by temperatures well below average in January. February and March were more typical ripening weather although a little drier than normal with low rainfall and drying winds. April was little weird with virtually no frosts, relatively warm nights and less hot […]
We are not sure why but the weather patterns in January really did not perform as we expected. The anticylcones which usually bring warm weather either crossed NZ further north or were simply too weak to keep the cooler southerly fronts away. January 2014 was the coolest January we have ever experienced in the vineyard. […]
In late January 2014 Raymond Chan visited the vineyard and we were able to open every vintage of Grasshopper Rock Pinot Noir for a very special tasting. Raymond was one of three wine writers we hosted at the vineyard leading up to the Pinot Celebration. With seven vintages to review this was the most extensive […]
Sam Kim, wine writer and wine judge, visited Grasshopper Rock in September 2013 and has recently released his tasting notes below. Vertical tastings, like this, are the best and most interesting way to capture the quality of a vineyard. The wines below span five years from our third vintage to our latest release in 2014. […]
Awards ELITE GOLD – Air New Zealand Wine Awards 2013 BLUE-GOLD and TOP1OO – Sydney International Wine Competition 2014 GOLD – Spiegelau International Wine Competition 2013 Reviews Michael Cooper – Michael Cooper’s Buyer’s Guide to New Zealand Wines – 5 STARS, February 2014 Estate-grown in Alexandra, this is typically a wonderful buy. Retasted in February 2014, the 2012 vintage […]
2011 was a warm vintage and produced an elegant and refined expression of Grasshopper Rock.AwardsGOLD – International Wine Challenge 2013BLUE-GOLD and TOP100wine – Sydney International Wine Competition 2013SILVER – Decanter Asia Wine Awards 2013SILVER – Spiegelau International Wine Competition 2013Reviews Bob Campbell MW – Gourmet Traveller Wine, Oct 2013 – 95/100 & 5 STARSDeeply scented pinot noir with floral, […]
AwardsChampion Wine of the Show Air New Zealand Wine Awards 2012Champion Pinot Noir Air New Zealand Wine Awards 2012Cuisine magazine Top New Zealand Pinot Noir 2012GOLD (Elite) – Air New Zealand Wine Awards 2012GOLD – Bragato Wine Awards 2012GOLD – NZ International Wine Show 2012GOLD – Spiegelau Internationa Wine Competition 2012ReviewsAir New Zealand Wine Awards 2012 – GOLDConfident and […]
Awards GOLD – Bragato Wine Awards 2011GOLD – Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Competition 2010BLUE-GOLD and TOP100 – Sydney International Wine Competition 2011SILVER – Air New Zealand Wine Awards 2011SILVER – London International Wine and Spirits Competition 2010SILVER – International Wine Challenge 2011Reviews Raymond Chan – Mar 201118.5-/20.0, 5 STARS* * * * *Very dark, deep, black hued ruby-red colour with youthful […]
The Henschke’s Hill of Grace is remarkable for the age of the oldest vines (150 years) and for its place in history as one of Australia oldest single vineyard wines. Hill of Grace has carved out a reputation as one of the most important single vineyard wines in Australia. When we established Grasshopper Rock in […]
Our predictions that this was going to be a cool season were right but it did end up better than we expected and closer to an average season, at least in terms of overall heat. The extremely cool spring resulted in reduced flower development. However a perfect period of fine warm weather for flowering in […]
The 2013 vintage is not picked yet and we need another two weeks of ripening to get the right balance.This means protecting the vines against damage from some pretty severe autumn frosts. There have been two minus 3 degree frosts in the last week and we aim to always be ready for such events. It’s […]
We are still on a high after Grasshopper Rock made the top 10 at the world’s first ever Wine-Stars. Billed as a Dragon’s Den style wine competition and held at the London International Wine Fair on 24th May 2012 this event has opened people’s eyes to how wineries from seemingly out of nowhere can engage […]
The final outcome of vintage 2012 is looking very good at this point. It was a great relief to have all our grapes safely in the winery on 26th April. With the unusually damp and cool weather we had mid-season we were pretty nervous about how the rest of the season would unfold. May be […]
A rollercoaster season. After an outstanding flowering and fruit set in spring, nature brought us back to the reality of growing Pinot Noir this far south. By the end of February total solar energy had been average for the season but in March temperatures drop dramatically putting us on a very slow ripening path. Large […]
Pinot Celebration 2012 (Queenstown 26-28 Feb 2012)“This is like going to a rock concert when you used to be able to get up close to the band…you get to drink with and hang out with the rock stars” Doug Frost MW MS speaking at The Grand DinnerThis is what makes the Pinot Celebration special and it […]
On the evening of 11 August snow swept the vineyard and by day further snow fell. Nothing unusual about snow, but this was of the most significant snow falls in many years, leaving the vineyard completely blanketed. In Queenstown it was claimed to be the biggest snow fall in 50 years.People were confined inside for […]
August, September and October were slightly warmer than average with significantly fewer frosts in September and October than would normally be expected. November and December continued to be significantly warmer and settled resulting in a near perfect flowering and fruit set. Fruit set was unusually consistent across all blocks. Berry size was large and comparable to or […]
Grasshopper Rock
PO Box 19 385
Hamilton
3244
New Zealand
Licensee: Grasshopper Rock
Licence #:67/OFF/10/2023
Exp: 15 Feb 2026
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