96 POINTS
Mike Bennie - Halliday Wine Companion
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.
95 POINTS
Ray Jordan - Winepilot
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.
95 POINTS
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
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.
94 POINTS
Mike Bennie - Halliday Wine Companion
There's an inherent vibrancy and energy to this wine, with bright fruit, lithe spice elements, toasty notes gently sewn through and a core of crushed rock minerality that weaves evenly and with interest through it all. Succulent texture, a gentle nature despite the vitality, transparency and purity as bylines. Delicious drinking ensues, and for those seeking understated and elegant rendering of the variety, look no further. Should mature gracefully in the medium term too.
94 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
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. 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
Elegant and perfumed, with vibrant fruit aromas of wild raspberries, dark cherries, cassia bark and orange peel. The palate is medium-bodied with very fine tannins and bright acidity, showing notes of ruby grapefruit, duck consomme, wet earth, blueberry bush and red apple skin. Delicate and refined, from a cool vintage with 20% whole-cluster fermentation.
93 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2023 Piccadilly Valley Pinot Noir was sourced from a selection of vineyards within the valley: Bowhouse, Woods Hill, Whisson, Deanery and Grigg. In the glass, the wine is a pale ruby and, aromatically, leads with strawberry, red apple, clove and potpourri. On the palate, the wine is tight and a little tart, with chinotto and blood orange, cherry and star anise. The 10% whole bunches emphasize the spiciness of the wine. It gets better as you drink more of it—an admirable quality in any wine—and the red fruit really starts to settle into the structure. I'd suggest getting this in a big glass and letting some air into it—it helps. 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
93 POINTS
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
Fluid movement. This is so spicy it’s almost peppery, though it also leans on the sappy side of that equation. But it’s the juicy, energetic flow of the fruit that really draws you in. Cherry-cranberry-strawberry characters wash attractively throughout, ushering those abundant spice notes. Tannin clumps slightly perhaps though it’s quickly moved along by the juiciness of the fruit. This is a lovely drink.
