Category: Pinot Noir

2010 Giant Steps Gladysdale Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

After some lacklustre cheapies from the big chain it’s good to spend time with something that looked great at the cellar door. Interesting to see just how the warm glow at the tasting bench fares in the cold light of a much later day. At first this was dusty, with a bit of lanolin reduction. Double decanted and a bit more fruit emerged with fennel and herby stalks pulling it right into line. It took twenty four hours for the sweet, ripe, dark cherry and squashed strawberry to surface above the neatly folded acid and whole bunch tannin. Doesn’t look like it’ll improve any further, it just still needs a lot of air to overcome a shy heart. Now to try and get that Police song about Giant Steps on the moon out of my head.

13% alcohol. Screwcap. $45.

94 shy and retiring points.

2017 Stoney Rise Pinot Noir

Lovely fresh red colour and smells. There’s some genuine tart berry perfume of good flavour ripeness without heaviness or green shrubbery. Only the acidity seems a bit too firm at the finish. Rather that than the higher PH and duller colour of warmer sites. The mid mouth flavour of ripe strawberries and raspberries with real freshness is just so delicious and bright. Cool for sure. Ripe fruit, just, at low alcohol, woohoo…

12% alcohol! Screwcap. $30.

92 points

2014 Mayer Close Planted Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

The label looks…er…familiar, a homage perhaps? Pine, herbs, cactus sap and sweet stewed raspberries and wild strawberries. Nice balance of fruit, drying stalk and a drag of slate acidity. Rounding out well with some time in the bottle. Some of that autumnal smoke and leaf litter emerging. Medium bodied, proper Pinot with fragrance, detail and enough fruit to carry the stalks which in turn prevent it being too sweetly fruited, ist gut!

13% alcohol. Diam. $55

93 points.

2018 Arfion Yarra Valley Spring Pinot

A favourite and very informed importer of some extraordinary Champagne mentioned one of the characteristics he loves in good wine is tension. Not so much anxiety but more a tasty paradox perhaps. Some fruit richness but lightness of structure. Fresh raspberries and strawberries pushed forward by some whole berry ferment but a darker earthy grip. So it went with this Pinot Noir over three days. No loss of interest, just a delicious balance of immediately drinkable sweet fruit and an earthy cut of savoury structure with a tiny tweak of sulphide. A calming tension.

13% alcohol. Screwcap. $30.

92 points.

Simple dinner for three..

Two halves and one full bottle made for a tasty and almost moderate dinner, sort of…

NV Louis Roederer Champagne Brut Premier.

Delicious from the gentle phttt of the cork. Rich but fresh. Older honeyed pastry and hazelnuts mixed perfectly with crystalline candied citrus and pale red fruit. Mouthwatering and appetite whetting likes no other drink. If NV’s job is to be full of delicious impact from the perfumed start, then this is the bee’s knees.

12.50% alcohol. Cork I think, maybe Diam, failing memory. Another generous share.

94 points.

2013 Comm. G B Burlotto Barolo.

Clean, expressive and so savoury from the start. Perfect cherry red fruit, almond paste and stones. Just got fresher and deeper. Not the deep dark of Serralunga or Monforte but all the drive, brightness and perfume of the more north westerly bits of Barolo land. Somehow seemed much smaller than 375 mls. Alarmingly quick disappearance.

14% alcohol. Cork. Thanks for sharing.

95 points.

1999 Domaine Tollot Beaut Corton Bressandes.

Dark, extractive and still a bit oaky. Got a bit fresher and deeper fruited as it came up for air. Rich red fruit conserve and darker clay and chalky earth. The rear end filled out well with dark cane fruit depth. Still some life in the tannin texture of both skin and cocoa oak buoyed by a gentle acid rasp. Shame the remains tired so quickly the next day.

14% alcohol. Cork. About $100 on release.

93 points.

1999 Domaine Henri Gouges Nuits St Georges Les Pruliers

Seasonal treat from the dungeon. Wonderful clean freshness for an oldie. Good red colour, gloriously red fruited with an almost austere tug of great tannin and acidity. Remington Norman’s Burgundy book mentions the extremely low yields the Gouges favour and this bears that out. Dense, round and deep. Untrammelled by any new oak. Paradoxically succulent and firmly spartan, ballerina poise. All my golden russet autumns in a bottle and there’s a few of them now.

13% alcohol. Cork. Was about 35 euros, contributing to a very heavy carry on before the 100ml limit. Them were the days.

96 points.

Well, it seems there’s more than one bottle of this in the cellar, so now there’s two less. The second from an the Australian importer looks considerably more developed with an autumnal and caramel fog lying across the cool flow of dense fruit and stern rocks. It had been on the shelf for a while, so maybe some early damage done? Much is made of the fanciful detail in Burgundy’s individual vineyards but slow sniffing and sipping is like a weird geological exploration, yes really. If you’ve ever driven out of the city’s fug, opened the car door somewhere refreshingly rural and taken a deep breath, well, it’s sort of like that. Silly old wino you say, definitely. Nonetheless, it’s a beautiful drink of that Burgundian paradox of poised fruit and rugged stone.

Still as above in numbers apart from the price in Australia. Just been in a warmer place for a while.

2007 McArthur Ridge Southern Tor Central Otago Pinot Noir

The only bottle of Kiwi Pinot in the cellar. Ten years ago it was fresh and bright, lower in alcohol than a lot of Otago Pinots and Murphy’s decided to clear it for under $30 I think I remember. Despite a bit of smoky old bottle development, it’s still fresh red fruits that hit the tongue mid way and taper a bit to finish. Pliant tannins and some more pure ripe strawberry and cherry as well. The acidity’s just a bit too hard and assertive, standing a little separately from the fruit and tannin. Bit of a shame as the flavours are convincing and tasty.

13.50% alcohol. Screwcap. $35 retail originally roughly before the less than engaging label saw it heavily discounted.

91 points.

2017 Heroes Pinot Noir

Over three evenings this evolved well. The colour deepened and the flavours unfurled. Fine boned and perfumed delicacy to much fuller on day three without oxidising or sacrificing any of its superb structure. Complex in the best sense, there’s some obvious stems and regional minty Aussie bush scents verging on sandalwood. We talk of terroir and Pinot and here the sense of place is well pitched and quietly spoken. Emerging from the depths to control the wine on day two and three, really fine red fruit fills the picture. After twenty four hours perfuming the finish and carrying long on chiseled stoney acidity, stalk tannin and a touch of oak. Perfect for the Pinot tragic with revolving smells, tastes and a fruit driven backbone of supple grace. If you fancy low alcohol, fine structure and perfumed depth in Pinot then here you go. This is going to age too.

12.90% alcohol! Screwcap. $40.

95+ points.

2012 Hoddles Creek 1er Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

Six years on and this is still bound, gagged and perhaps enjoying it. Light extraction and perfumed delicacy prevail, almost to the point of wishing for a touch more concentration? Both smell and taste are as if all the fragrance and bone china fruit of Pinot have been chiseled away from anything faintly hinting at the robust. There’s still hints of lanolin reduction that take a day to breathe away to leave a very poised wine. It carries long on fine acidity and super silky tannins. If the fruit and my faculties hold on, this will be worth a look in a few more years yet.

13.40% alcohol. Screwcap. $40 in 2014 from those generous blokes at Boccaccio.

93 points

 

2002 Denis Mortet Gevrey Chambertin Lavaux St Jacques 1er Cru

These 2002 red Burgundies seem to have a delicious balance of ripeness and freshness judging from a sadly small sampling. The colour’s holding up well with a still clear red. Smells of perfumed wild strawberry and cherry mix with sweet earthiness battling the sort of very expensive oak only the Burgundians seem to be able to choose. A good mouthful reveals the same ethereal fruit and earth with fine ripe acidity. Only towards the end does that luxury barrique impose its tannins. Perhaps a bit too much so? Prefer the natural transparency of the Chevillon.

13% alcohol. Cork. $130 from Como Wine some time ago. Aghast to see what it would fetch in a Hong Kong auction.

95 points.