Pinot Noir

What’s a delicate, pernickety grape like this doing in a sun-drenched robust country like Australia, you might ask.

You’d be asking a good question.  Pinot Noir is a challenge to grow in any part of the world.  What’s now emerged is a handful of Pinot Noir styles all Australia’s own and a proud group they are too.  Being a cool climate variety, growers in the coolest regions are seeing great success; that’s in regions like the Adelaide Hills, Tasmania, Mornington Peninsula, Geelong, the Yarra Valley and Great Southern.

In these regions the wines tend to come out strawberry / raspberry- fruited when young, then get progressively more mushroomy and savoury with age.  The best styles of all come from vines with a little age, which haven’t been harvested too heavily and from wines given a gentle maturation in oak barrels.