2023 Estate Pinot Noir

95 Points - Halliday

The Story: If you want to prove your mettle as a vigneron then Pinot Noir must be your mistress. With Pinot Noir comes many pleasures and much pain. For sure, she is a cruel paramour, hard to coax, but if you are attentive and persistent, she can reward your devotion with dramatic complexity and sheer spinetingling excitement. In my opinion, Pinot Noir can deliver the most profound and complex, yet ethereal expression of any grape. With her beautiful colour, fine boned acidity, silky body, and compelling aromas I never get tired of exploring her.

In 2023 I have yet again survived a love affair with this heartbreak grape, and this bottle tells the tale.

"From four separate vineyards in Geelong that all make single-vineyard wines as well! About 50% whole bunches and 50% new French barriques. A bright ruby garnet. Ultra perfumed with aromas of wild strawberry, musk sticks and spices such as cardamom and clove. Medium bodied and red fruited and with fine, silky and persistent tannins rounding out a wine that's already delicious yet will reward another five to seven years in the cellar." Philip Rich, Halliday, 95 Points

"This is a herbal, bunchy pinot noir with sappy characters littered through red cherried fruit. There’s a distinct sweetness to this fruit but all-the-while it’s run through with savouriness, which for me is a beautiful combination. Stringy tannin threads its way intricately through the back half of the wine, and floral characters rise with air. This wine sits firmly at the savoury end of the pinot noir spectrum and, in that style, is excellent."  Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, 94 points

“The nose is lifted and floral with an edge of reduction, giving aromas of rose petals, wild raspberries and red licorice. The palate is medium-bodied with finely integrated tannins and bright acidity, giving notes of red currants, cassia bark and forest floor. Very well constructed and balanced. Drink or hold. Screw cap.”
93 points, jamessuckling.com