Winemaker Notes
Aromas of spiced rhubarb, sweet red cherries, Asian five spice and vanilla mingle with earthy notes and the distinct fruity spice notes of sassafras forest. The palate is seductive with fleshy red and black cherries. It develops with spices from the whole bunch inclusion and French oak barrels.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Seductively lush, with plump mulberry aromas and hints of earth and smoke. The fruit character is ripe but not overly so, and the texture is dense but not heavy due to the fresh acidity and mid-palate density. The grapes are blended from three sites and fermented with 25% whole clusters, three punch-downs daily before being pressed and racked into cask (21% new) for ageing. A crowd-pleasing Pinot that balances richness with structure and freshness.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Pinot Noir leads with a gently reductive nose, black cherries, caper brine, mulberry and cigar box. In the mouth, the fruit floods the palate and shows a ready succulence of pink and red berries. It is cushioned, plump and juicy, with enough savory tannin to both shape and balance the fruit. Lovely. Very good. Rating: 92+
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.”
Directly south of the city of Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula wine region, the cool-climate island of Tasmania has earned an honorable reputation as the country’s finest producer of Sparkling Wine. Naturally the region also excels in top quality still wines from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling, all distinguished because of a high natural acidity. Most of the Tasmania vineyards cluster around the eastern side of the island from north to south.