Odyssey Wines is a boutique Marlborough producer founded by winemaker Rebecca Salmond in 1994, drawing on her training at Massey University and Roseworthy College and vintages in Burgundy, Bordeaux and Cote Rotie. The Reserve Iliad Pinot Noir is drawn from the estate's own vineyard sitting atop the Brancott Valley, managed organically and planted alongside Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris. The site's free-draining clay-loam soils and the valley's cool nights and long ripening season favour aromatic, structured Pinot Noir. In the warm, dry 2023 season fruit was allowed to reach full flavour ripeness while retaining the natural acidity that gives the wine line and freshness.

Fruit for the Reserve Iliad was hand-harvested, largely destemmed and cold-soaked before fermentation in small open vessels, with regular plunging to build colour and tannin gently. Fermentation ran with a mix of indigenous and cultured yeasts, and the wine completed malolactic conversion in barrel. Maturation followed in French oak, a portion new, over roughly ten to eleven months, developing the cedar, spice and savoury complexity noted by reviewers alongside black cherry and plum fruit. Salmond's minimal-intervention approach keeps handling gentle, aiming for a wine that is concentrated and fleshy yet silky and integrated, with polished tannins and cellaring potential to around 2030.