This wine column was originally published in the Martinborough Star, May 2025
As autumn’s coppery leaves turn to winter’s skeletal trees, there’s a burning question on the minds of many Pinot Noir devotees – how good will the wines from 2025 be?
The answer appears to be a resounding positive applause from a wide range of winemakers, large and small, from across the stony terrace vineyards in the village and further afield in Te Muna Valley.
Here’s a snapshot of their views on vintage 2025, which is representative of the visceral sense of a relief that this year has produced a relatively good volume of extremely good quality grapes.
“For a season that presented numerous challenges in the Wairarapa wine region, the grapes produced vintage have been exceptional and bountiful,” says winemaker John Porter of Porters Pinots. Crops were higher than expected following spring frosts and unusually cool temperatures in December and January, says Porter, whose comments are echoed by other winemakers across the region, including Phill McArthur from Moy Hall.
“The stable warm weather late in the ripening season allowed for big crops to ripen slowly with a great balance between sugar and physiological ripeness,” says McArthur.
Bunches have been big for all of the grape varieties that he works with and, for Pinot Noir, ripe brown seeds and stalks have broadened out his winemaking options so that this vintage could be characterised by highly structured wines from Moy Hall.
“The Pinot’s brown seeds this year have given us the option for a longer time on skins and whole bunch ferments, adding more layers of flavour to the wines. It’s early days, but I’m seeing vintage 2025 Pinots to be perfumed, elegant and complex.”
The Chairperson of Wairarapa Wine Region, Wilso Lam, says that, in his eyes, the 2025 vintage is a great success.“The cool and wet weather over Christmas and the New Year helped set the grapes on the vine, which gave us plenty of fruit. Moderate temperatures in the second half of summer maintained the freshness of flavour. I see a great showcase of fruit, depth and deliciousness this year, says Lam.
In summary, vintage 2025 was a big success for Martinborough winemakers, says Paul Mason of Nga Waka wines.
“The quality was very good due to the lovely summer weather we experienced since late January and yields were above average, which means most wineries filled up all their barrels and tanks.”
The settled sunny warm weather over the harvest period enabled vineyards to be picked in clean health at good ripeness levels, allowing harvest to take place when grapes were in optimal condition.
It’s early days but the ferments are showing flavours that are concentrated, flavoursome, very well balanced and have richness and firm acidity, which is a hall mark of great Pinot Noir in years when a little cool weather goes a long way towards creating great balance.
The 2025 Pinot Noirs from Martinborough are likely to be seen as wines from a very good year.
Image supplied by Moy Hall wines, showing the vineyard at the cellar door restaurant.
