Felton Road

Felton Road is a wine estate in the Central Otago sub-region of Bannockburn. It is one of New Zealand's best known and most highly respected producers, and its Pinot Noir wines are considered some of the best expressions of that variety in the New World. Felton Road also makes several key wines from Riesling and Chardonnay.

The estate comprises three vineyards on warm, north-facing slopes in Bannockburn: the original Elms vineyard, the Macmuir vineyard and the Calvert vineyard. Elms was first planted in 1992 and is where most of the 'Block' series wines come from. Added to these is a 9-hectare (22-acre) Cornish Point vineyard, which became a part of Felton Road's holdings when it was bought in 1998 by Nigel Greening.

Felton Road harvests grapes by hand, and follows the minimal intervention ethos in the winery, with with gravity-fed systems, wild yeasts and malolactic fermentations, and no fining or filtration in the red wines. The Pinot Noir wines are all made the same way: around a quarter of the fruit is kept as whole bunches, and there is a 5-10 day cold soak before a wild ferment. After fermentation, the standard Felton Road Pinot Noir spends 11 months in barrel, and the top wines spend 15 to 18 months.

Felton Road is also known for its Riesling. There are two in the standard range that are made in a similar way – a dry Riesling and a Riesling with 65g/l of residual sugar. The Block 1 Riesling, Felton Road's top white wine, is grown on heavier soils and shows a rounder texture with tropical passionfruit flavors.