Winemaker Notes
This is a beautifully fragrant Pinot Noir showing plenty of red fruits, with subtle earthiness and undergrowth giving added complexity. Silky, elegant tannins combine with a juicy, textured palate. Very age-worthy.
Professional Ratings
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Australian Wine Companion
While there’s a lightness of touch here – and such a different shape across the palate this vintage – Original is a delight. Heady aromas, cherries and poached rhubarb, light herbal tones, earthy and almost thirst quenching. Mid weighted, with acidity the driver rather than tannin structure, which are nonetheless savory and fine.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
Nestled into the tip of its southeastern coastline, Victoria is Australia’s smallest mainland state, second most populous and third largest wine producer. Victoria includes the cool regions of Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Geelong, made famous mainly by impressive Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
The more inland Heathcote and Bendigo lead the way for complex and textured, full-bodied reds. Rutherglen’s fortified wines compete among the best on the planet.