“A lower-yield year with prolonged ripening and coolness alongside. It’s a svelte and meticulous pinot noir, tightly coiled around a strongly minerally profile with brisk acidity dragging the wine long and to a distinct, persistent finish. There’s tart red cherry, some smoky spice elements, a touch of forest floor and brambly blackberries in the mix, clove as a gentle indicator of oak seasoning and an array of
exotic souk-like aromatics and flavours lending complexity. The wine is quite understated in its profile but delivers a strong sense of structure and tension, length and control. It’s a very fine pinot noir leaning beautifully into its more savoury flex. Utter charm is the result.”
Mike Bennie (Halliday Wine Companion)
“The 2023 Estate Pinot Noir is stylish, red-fruited, floral and fine. It has notes of beeswax and clove, cherry and blood orange. The wine is super elegant and fine, with a flow of red fruit across the palate that feels like a harness of the cool season that birthed it. This is very good, silky. The fruit for this wine is from the Ashton Hills vineyard—hence, “estate”—and was handpicked, keeping the clones D5V12 (42%), 777 (25%), Martini (22%), MV6 (9%) and 828 (2%) separate. It was wild fermented in small open-top fermenters with 14% whole bunches and basket pressed to French oak barriques (17% new) for nine months’ maturation."
Erin Larkin (RobertParker.com)
“The cool and wet season contributed to a longer hang time on the vines, with the resulting aromatics and excellent structure ideal for a classy Pinot Noir like this one. It’s a combination of clones with some whole bunches contributing to its structure and poise. Intense aromas of cherry and truffle with a palate that is powerful and elegant. It’s light-bodied but there is ample power in here sustained through to the long finish.”
Ray Jordan (Winepilot)
“This is a powerhouse. A truly, inherently, varietal powerhouse. It shows strong fruit, strong tannin and strong oak, though all are measured, and all show finesse. Cherries red and black, peppercorns, cedarwood, smoked meat and a wild array of herbs, florals and spices. It puts up the spinnaker and then sails it on home. This is a beautiful Pinot Noir from the estate of Ashton Hills."
Campbell Mattinson (The Winefront)
