Winemaker Notes
Dark hues with a cherry rim. Classically varietal nose exemplified with plum, spice, strawberry and autumn leaves. The palate is light to medium bodied with complex and long-lived flavor. Lifted red fruits with the subtle complexing of earth and forest floor.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a bright and bouncy wine with crowd-pleasing aromas of primary red fruit, spice, vanilla and florals. It’s silky in the mouth with tangy acidity, nice length and drive, and a frame of spicy, chalky tannins. For the price, this should be a weeknight staple. Little Peacock Imports.
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.