Winemaker Notes
Complex, aromatic, medium bodied with deceptive power, silky tannins and long term ageing potential. The 2021 shows black cherry, darker fruits, underlying gamey aromas with great flavor and length.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A beautifully crafted pinot, as always, with focused fruit, subtle undertones of cedar and leather and hints of foie gras. It’s full-bodied, but not heavy, with plenty of tension and focus. Bright acidity with depth and length. Impressive.
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Wine Enthusiast
An elegant and gentle expressive Pinot with plump red and blue fruit underscored by subtle floral, hoisin and a myriad dried herbs, leads to a silky, mid-weight palate. There’s lovely balance, structure and depth of flavor, here, with fine, chalky tannins.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Pinot Noir is incredibly aromatic on the nose, with sweet strawberry and cherry, layers of red apple and spice and lashings of abundant fruit. The wine is spicy and luscious, with loads of flavor up front that gently spools out through the finish, which is spicy, with some garden mint, clove and licorice nuances laced throughout.
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Wine Spectator
Aromatic, juicy and tangy, with a creamy texture and clove and cinnamon accents to the strawberry-rhubarb flavors, revealing green tea and lavender hints on the long finish.
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.