Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2012 Pinot Noir leads with an array of coffee grinds, cocoa powder, redcurrants and black cherries. The whole bunch aspect contributes a salted licorice and tobacco leaf character in the mouth, while the fruit sails through it all with grace. This is elegant and fine, balanced in its outlay of sweet vs savory. The color is fresh both in the glass and in the mouth. There’s red toffee apple through the finish. It has a decade to go or more. Best After 2022
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.