Winemaker Notes
Deep garnet color with a nose that is complex, darkly perfumed and tightly wound. Deep dark cherry fruit, dark violet perfume with exotic incense-like notes. On the palate, black cherry and raspberry, with pomegranate syrup, star anise and firm, fine grained velvety tannins. Long, concentrated and complex. Still very youthful, will open up and soften with time.
A great match to slow cooked duck marylands with beetroot and potato mash.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine Enthusiast
Still young despite some bottle age, this elegant Pinot takes time to open. When it does, it presents an array of attractive notes, from plump, brambly red berries and dried roses to mushrooms and hoisin sauce. A backbone of vanillin oak is present but well placed. Medium bodied, it's broad in shape but tucked in neatly by warm, spicy tannins. With lovely length and texture, this is a classy wine with flesh on its bones.
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.”
Extending into the sea from just south of the city of Melbourne to form Port Philip Bay in the southern state of Victoria, the Mornington Peninsula grape growing region naturally has a cool, maritime climate. A wide range of soils and topographic variations support a large diversity of wine styles within the small headland.