At the American Hotel, lunch and a sampling of wines from one of New Zealand’s preeminent producers. A clean sweep of top quality vintages, captivating and complex.

New Zealand: Craggy Range

Steve Smith is technically not a winemaker. He trained as a viticulturist and he also is a designated Master of Wine, the highest internationally recognized qualification for wine professionals, a title currently held by only 250 other people. Mr. Smith, to put it bluntly, is one smart farmer.

He grew up on the land in New Zealand, where he is now an owner of Craggy Range, one of that country’s preeminent wineries. Given his training, it comes as no surprise that the wines of Craggy Range are abundant and spirited expressions of terroir, the remarkable and unique sense of place that is embodied in the products of the soil of a region.

Each of the wines produced by Craggy Range comes from a single estate, a location particularly suited by soil and climate (and a myriad of small details) for that grape. What sets Craggy Range apart from most wineries is their implementation of this principle. Their vineyards are scattered through the two main islands of New Zealand in a quest to find the optimal sites for each variety they grow. Some fields are naturally right for only one type of grape, some for two or three, and grapes from different geographical sources are never mixed.

Since the inception of the winery, Mr. Smith has been intimately involved with selecting the sites and tending the vines, as well as giving direction and focus to the company’s winemakers. Mr. Smith, whose official title is Wine and Viticulture Director, recently visited the Hamptons with Terry Peabody Jr., who deals with the business side. The Peabody family, owners of a prominent international business group in Australia, made a substantial financial investment in bringing Craggy Range from vision to reality, and they have also made a generational commitment to being involved with winemaking on the highest levels.

We met to sample some of the wines and have lunch at the American Hotel. I asked Christina Zacharia, a friend who lives in Sag Harbor with her husband Don, the owner of Zachy’s, the New York wine merchant and wine auction house, to join us and be my second opinion.

Craggy Range makes two lines of wine: the Vineyard Designated Collection, a series of single vineyard varietals, and the Prestige Collection, which includes a single vineyard blend, a more limited and expensive series. With the emphasis on terroir, and growing conditions that are subject to seasonal fluctuations, some of the Craggy Range wines are not produced in years that nature goes against them. Theirs is a rigorous standard, and it shows. Each wine that I tasted was exuberant, refined and beautifully made, showing that the strength of Craggy Range continues from the vineyard directly into the cellars where the wines are crafted.

The sauvignon blanc from the 2005 vintage ($22) was layered with aromas and flavors—citrus, tropical fruit, apple, pear and minerals. Clean and vigorous and supple, this is an outstanding sauvignon blanc from a region and a country that understand this grape. A riesling from the same vintage ($24) had floral notes along with its fruit, and a delicate but decisive presence on the palate. It is everything a dry riesling should be, at least for my own taste.

New Zealand’s reputation for pinot noir has been burgeoning. Given their past skills in virtually reinventing sauvignon blanc, it is no surprise that we are seeing some outstanding pinot noir production there. The pinot noir grape can be difficult to grow and to vinify, and it varies enormously with the site and the vintage. I hesitate to generalize too much; but if the Craggy Range Vineyard Designated interpretation is an indicator of what is happening in New Zealand, fasten your seat belt.

This is an intense, elegant, structured wine, with a sumptuous aroma and a velvety taste. It manages to avoid the overblown, jammy tastes of many New World pinot noir in favor of a more dimensional and balanced Burgundy model with earthy complexity. I had the 2004 vintage, which sells for $40.

Le Beaux Caillioux, “the beautiful gravels,” is the name of their Prestige Collection chardonnay ($60). It is one of the most captivating and complex chardonnays I’ve come across. My mind was so busy examining the subtle proportions of this dazzling chardonnay during the tasting that at the end of the lunch I had another glass in place of dessert just to relax and savor it without being analytical.

Craggy Range wines can be that seductive. Le Beaux Caillioux, Sophia (a merlot dominant blend, $60) and Le Sol ($65), a syrah, all in the Prestige Collection, deserve more than a passing mention, and I will revisit them in a future column.