This week I attended a very disappointing tasting of Pinot Noir from a few selected Australian regions despite featuring some prominent names. All were opened just prior to the beginning of the event and had little to no breathing time, which upon reflection may have been a factor in some individual cases:
FLIGHT 1: Normally I don’t expect much from the opening flight, and this measured up to that expectation – unfortunately the wines didn’t improve much afterward.
2008 Ashton Hills Estate Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills SA (screwcap): Light to medium red. Very ripe cherry fruit with noticeable lift and varnish characters on the nose; the palate is just as jammy and volatile with obvious vanilla oak, a hollow mid-palate, and alcohol warmth on the finish. It shows all the rough edges of a vintage badly effected by the heatwave.
2006 Ashton Hills Estate Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills SA (screwcap): Light red/garnet. Very green, herbal and breezy with lighter, stemmy cherry fruit and slightly metallic/mushroom characters; the palate’s also lighter and just as herbal, with stalky cherries and bath salts, finishing with an odd, awkward wallop of acid. It’s too green and too thin, virtually the polar opposite of the 2008 vintage in style but equally unattractive.
2004 Ashton Hills Estate Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills SA (screwcap): Light red/garnet, ever so slightly paler than the 2006 vintage. It’s also quite herbal but more complex and appealing, cherry stones and mushroom, a hint of coffee and then tea chest; a powerful, fleshy entry leads to a stalky mid-palate of cherries and bath salts, finishing grippy with a hint of white pepper on the end. Easily the best of the opening trio, yet it’s a only solid wine at best – little did I know this was as good as it would get for most of the night…
FLIGHT 2: Unfortunately these weren’t an improvement on the Estate wines, and I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that maybe I just don’t ‘get’ Ashton Hills Pinot Noir.
2008 Ashton Hills Reserve Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills SA (screwcap): Light to medium red. Very similar to the Estate wine, oaky and volatile with slightly darker, meaty characters and some coffee; the palate’s over-ripe, short and acidic with alcohol warmth on the finish. The best oak in the world isn’t going to save this fruit.
2006 Ashton Hills Reserve Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills SA (screwcap): Light red. Sure enough, this is almost as green, stalky and herbal as the Estate wine, with beetroot and meaty/sausage characters; the palate is still stalky, relatively lean and green with mushroom/herbal characters, but the length and balance are an improvement, finishing slightly peppery.
2004 Ashton Hills Reserve Pinot Noir, Adelaide Hills SA (screwcap): Light to medium red. Earthy and ever so slightly darker and volatile than the Estate wine at first, the tea chest, espresso and varnish characters giving way to more green/herbal and meaty/smoky characters. A slippery entry with a noticeable glycerol mouthfeel leads to a palate that’s minty and yet slightly jammy and short; not as convincing as the Estate wine tonight.
FLIGHT 3: The first thing I noticed with these Mornington pinots was the mouthcoating tannins that the Ashton Hills didn’t have, giving them superior structure and length. That said, they were still awkward and disjointed and I expected a lot better – perhaps the heatwave was to blame?
2008 Port Phillip Estate Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula VIC (DIAM): Light to medium red. Very ripe with dark cherries, tea chest and star anise characters at first, but the volatility took over until it literally resembled vinegar; the palate’s full of earthy cherry fruit, soft tannins and loads of grip, finishing with obvious, minty alcohol warmth. The speed this degenerated in the glass was nothing short of alarming.
2008 Kooyong Single Vineyard Selection - Haven Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula VIC (DIAM): Light to almost medium red. Very closed, with small whiffs of cherries, bath salts/minerals and herbs appearing with a lot of work and patience; an earthy entry leads to a long and grippy palate with soft, tea-like tannins, but it seems to lack fruit and there’s minty alcohol heat on the finish. Very disappointing.
2008 Kooyong Single Vineyard Selection - Meres Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula VIC (DIAM): Light red. Like the 2008 Haven this was very closed, slowly revealing slightly cooler mushroom and stalky/herbal characters. The palate entry is softer than the Haven but just as earthy, with the same mushroom and herbal/green characters of the nose, significantly thinner with a minty and bitter finish, although it does seem to put on some weight and look a bit better with breathing.
FLIGHT 4: These still looked awkward with an additional four years on the clock – will they ever come around, or are they grossly overrated? James Halliday had the drinking window of these two expiring this year, but I hope their best days aren’t behind them.
2004 Kooyong Single Vineyard Selection - Haven Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula VIC (DIAM): Light to medium red. More immediately open than the 2008 vintage, with beetroot, raspberries, coffee, ground spices and smoked meats leaping from the glass. The palate seems to be bigger too, the considerable tannins swallowed up by the dark cherry fruit, finishing very long and grippy but with a harsh, green bitterness at the very end that brings it crashing back to mediocrity. This is getting frustrating…
2004 Kooyong Single Vineyard Selection - Ferrous Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula VIC (DIAM): Light red. More like the Meres in style, notably greener/herbal than the Haven with mushroom, strawberry and creamy vanilla characters; the palate’s lighter too, spicy and minty, long and grippy with pepper on the finish. Marginally better than its sibling tonight, yet I also get the feeling the Haven has something more to give while this has possibly peaked.
FLIGHT 5: The first wine apparently won the best pinot noir trophy at the recent 2011 Sydney Wine Show, yet many of us didn’t think it was particularly pinot-like.
2009 Tamar Ridge Kayena Vineyard Pinot Noir TAS (screwcap): Medium to almost dark red. Unbelievably perfumed and flamboyant compared to the previous wines, scrubbed/soapy black cherries & plum, black pepper, tea-smoked duck, red liquorice and pan juices. The palate is nowhere near as convincing, very sweet with chocolate-coated raspberries then currants, and a spicy finish that gets hotter and sweeter with breathing. The grippy tannins are there, but at the moment it’s way too ripe, sweet and hot for my liking.
2008 Tamar Ridge Kayena Vineyard Pinot Noir TAS (screwcap): Light to medium red. More elegant and lifted than the 2009 vintage, delicately perfumed with cherries, stalks and bath salts/minerals; a sweet entry leads to a palate that’s just as disturbingly sweet with raspberry confectionery/musk sticks, then some mineral mid-palate leading to an obviously oaky finish. A little better and more pinot-like than the recent trophy winner, but not particularly impressive either.
FLIGHT 6: The final flight capped off a very ordinary tasting with a decent wine bookmarked by corked and badly oxidised examples – perhaps it was a fitting way to finish the event.
2003 Pipers Brook Vineyard Estate Pinot Noir, Pipers Brook TAS (cork): Light red. The first whiff of damp cardboard and sweaty socks on the nose is a giveaway the wine is corked; the palate tries to put up a fight showing some raspberry fruit, but the scalped finish confirms it’s stuffed.
2003 Pipers Brook Vineyard Reserve Pinot Noir, Pipers Brook TAS (cork): Light to medium red. It’s hard really to know what to think of this wine apart from it being a mercifully enjoyable drink between two monumental duds, medium-weight and spicy with attractive tea chest, cherry and meaty/pan juice characters, soft tannins and very good length. It’s probably the wine of the night, not that I say that with much confidence.
2003 Pipers Brook Vineyard Lyre Pinot Noir, Pipers Brook TAS (cork): Light to medium red. Stocky, mousy and acrid, reeking of vinegar and cordite, oxidised to buggery and absolutely revolting – the first whiff alone was enough to turn my stomach.
Cheers,
Ian
TN: Some Rather Ordinary Australian Pinots 4/4/11
TN: Some Rather Ordinary Australian Pinots 4/4/11
Forget about goodness and mercy, they're gone.
Re: TN: Some Rather Ordinary Australian Pinots 4/4/11
hazzyk wrote:Root day?
I had the exact same thought and said it at the tasting - I'm not sure anyone took it seriously though.
Forget about goodness and mercy, they're gone.