Bright cherry red Alma ’25 announces itself with confidence. Lifted aromatics of raspberry, lavender, plum, and pink peppercorn unfold with an appealing savoury edge. The palate layers rose petal and cinnamon over deeper notes of prune, liquorice, and warm spice. Youthful yet assured, Alma ’25 delivers excellent length and momentum, with finely detailed tannins framing a core of fresh, ripe, and concentrated red and black fruit. Alma ’25 is closed with a Diam cork and will evolve in bottle for 10 years from harvest.

First planted in 1999, Alma is the finest expression of Te Mata Estate’s commitment to great New Zealand pinot noir. Alma expresses brooding cherry and delicious ripe, dark plum flavours that unfurl with  avoury wildwood scents of truffle and spice.

Alma celebrates Dr James Thomson, a hero of the 1854 Battle of the Alma during the Crimean War and forefather to Te Mata Estate’s Buck family. Knowing the vanquished enemy soldiers had already contracted cholera, Dr Thomson volunteered to tend to their wounds, saving the lives of over four hundred, and sacrificing his own in the process. The medal he was awarded for this selfless act of valour appears on the label of Alma Pinot Noir.

Separate parcels of fully ripened pinot noir grapes were hand harvested from Te Mata Estate’s Woodthorpe vineyard between 25 and 26 February 2025.

The individual lots were each destemmed and given a traditional warm-plunged fermentation. The resulting wines underwent extended maceration on skins before pressing. The separate wines were all run to a mixture of new and seasoned French oak barriques for 10 months’ maturation, with 32% being new oak.