2022 Snakes Tongue Pinot Noir, Pyramid Valley

Bright ruby in colour, the 2022 Snake’s Tongue unfurls with quiet confidence, oozing wild cherry, black plum, and clove that meet whispers of thyme, forest floor and a flicker of game. There’s an energy beneath the surface, a subtle tension between brightness and depth. The palate is sleek and silky, with juicy red fruit gliding over fine, chalky tannins. Hints of savoury spice and cured meat linger on the finish, carried by a supple acidity that keeps everything fresh and alive. It’s a wine of understatement and allure, expressive, grounded, and beautifully wild at heart.

For when: the lights are low and conversation turns unguarded.
Pairs with: duck confit, roasted root vegetables, or truffle risotto.
If this wine were a feeling, it’d be velvet in motion, soft, deep, and quietly captivating.

Grown in the Snake’s Tongue parcel at the Pyramid Valley Mānatu Estate in Lowburn, Central Otago, this wine reflects the rare precision of Abel-clone Pinot farmed organically on loess and deep silts laced with lime. The site, planted in 2007, lies on gentle slopes that harness both sunlight and cool alpine breezes, yielding fruit of exceptional purity. The name pays tribute to the dominant wild plant of the block, in keeping with the estate’s Botanicals philosophy, wines that quite literally breathe of their place.

Under the stewardship of Huw Kinch and owners Steve Smith and Brian Sheth, Pyramid Valley continues the legacy begun by Mike and Claudia Weersing: crafting Pinot Noirs that channel their land’s energy into pure, textural, and deeply expressive wines. The 2022 Snake’s Tongue is both a new chapter and a faithful echo, a Central Otago Pinot Noir of lift, luminosity, and quiet power.