Ashton Hills Estate Pinot Noir 2021

95 POINTS

Jeni Port - Halliday Wine Companion

Fermented with 18% whole bunches, matured in new and seasoned French oak for 9 months. The 2021 vintage was widely considered to be an excellent vintage in Piccadilly Valley. Pinot was a standout. Here, it delivers an exotic edge to an impressively vibrant red-garnet hue, with a mix of black cherry, cranberry and red berries, forest notes, a hint of musk here, bitter wild herbs there. All dressed up in fine tannins and ready to go.

94 POINTS

Jeni Port - Halliday Wine Companion

Fermented with 30% whole bunches, matured in French oak for 9 months. In the dark and brooding class of pinot, with undergrowth, autumnal leaves, dark berries, woodsy spices and sage. The amount of whole bunches has been decreased from 2020, a good sign, bringing an element of added complexity rather than sharpness. A strong, firm, exciting young pinot.

93 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front

“Fruit for the 2021 Piccadilly Valley Pinot Noir was taken from six blocks and split into 45 separate ferments. The percentage of whole bunch was backed off a little to 30% so as not to overpower the fruit characters, but still play an important role in aromatics and structure.” This is in lovely form. It tastes spicy and it feels well structured but the fruit is ripe and juicy. Cranberry into boysenberry and red cherry, florals and woodsy spice. It’s fairly light on its feet but it has enough insistence to make its quality clear. Oak, gently smoked, is so very well played here, so neatly tucked. It’s well played all around.

93 POINTS

Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front

This is a settled, reserved, slightly broody release. It doesn’t really elevate your heart rate, at this early stage, and yet everything is pretty much exactly where you’d want it to be. There’s undergrowth to its cherries notes, spice to its earth, tobacco to its cedar wood oak. Balance is about as good as it gets, as is the way the wine’s fine-grained tannin slips through the wine, unobtrusively for the most part and yet just asserting itself enough to make you take it seriously. Just hold onto this for a wee while. It’s going to a good place.

92 POINTS

Tina Gellie - Decanter

Lifted cherryade and blossom aroma – light and delicate – precedes a wilder, stemmy, sour cherry tang alongside pomegranate and forest floor notes. Gorgeous purity and flow on the palate, driven by fresh acidity and fine smoky tannins. Very moreish and sinewy.

90 POINTS

James Suckling

Juicy pinot with aromas of raspberries, red cherries, pomegranates and orange rind. Crisp and medium-bodied with soft tannins and pleasant, earthy notes on the finish. Vegan.

90 POINTS

James Suckling

A juicy and savory pinot with notes of chestnut mushrooms, sliced strawberries, raspberries, lemons and bay leaves. Medium-bodied, soft and easygoing. Vegan.