Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Another exceptional bottling from this famous producer. Deeply perfumed, brooding aromas of blue and black fruits are supported with underlying notes of forest floor, pencil shavings, pomegranate, rose petals and dried herbs. The silken palate has firmly framed, rounded tannins balanced by mineral-driven acidity. This Grand Cru-level pinot noir will last for decades to come, albeit fresh, reduced and seductive now. Brilliant. Drink or hold.
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Australian Wine Companion
A wonderfully perfumed and composed wine that comes across as a little finer in aromatic detail than the excellent '23 release. It's an amalgam of clones – 777, 667, Abel, Pommard, MV6 and some that winemaker Adam Wadewitz snaffled from Best's Great Western – all playing their part in the final blend. Vibrant dark cherry, red berry and raspberry fruit tones mesh with hints of exotic spice, a whiff of negroni, juniper, wild strawberry, almond paste, integrated vanillin oak, meadow flowers and crushed stone. Everything plays at concert pitch, with complex whole bunch (50%) notes, the gentle tension of ground-riverstone tannins and a fine, mineral line as the wine slowly trails away. A cracking release that smells and tastes of a special place.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2024 Pinot Noir is supple, silky and powerful. The season was warm, and the wines I have tasted so far—with particular reference to the Pinot Noirs, although not exclusively—have been excellent. This is fresh and vibrant, with cranberry, black cherry, raspberry and field strawberry, alongside licorice and scratched blood orange. This is impressive, to say the least. It has shades of the 2023 density of fruit, but everything is ratcheted up a notch—and for the good too. 13.5% alcohol.
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.