Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This is a great edition of Henschke's Lenswood pinot noir from a vintage that has delivered an elegant yet powerful style. It's innately balanced, too: a vigneron's dream. Smells of bright red cherries, bracken and background spices. Some blue fruits and hints of savory brown spices are also on display. Tight-packed and disciplined palate with a crunchy core of strawberry, raspberry and red-cherry flavors. Fine tannins envelop a pastry-like texture and a resolute pop of acidity makes for a convincing pinot. This will evolve brilliantly for 6+ years.
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a lean style and still a baby with its sappy red strawberry and raspberry notes, with cinnamon, tar, violets, warm stones and furniture polish. The palate is tightly wound, ending on a long, tart cranberry and raspberry finish. Drink now if you like your Pinot al dente, otherwise cellar through 2025.
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.”
A narrow band of hills and valleys east of the city of Adelaide, the Adelaide Hills region is a diverse landscape featuring a variety of microclimates. In general it is moderate with high-altitude areas cooler and wetter compared to its warmer, lower areas.
Piccadilly Valley, the part of Adelaide Hills closest to the city, was first staked out by a grower named Brian Croser, in the 1970s for a cool spot to grow Chardonnay, then uncommon in Australia. Today a good amount of the Chardonnay goes to winemakers outside of the region.
Producers here experiment with other cool-climate loving aromatic varieties like Pinot Gris, Viognier and Riesling. Charming sparkling wine is also possible. On its north side, lower, west-facing slopes make full-bodied Shiraz.