Location and Aspect: The grapes are sourced from well-established, premium blocks in our vineyards in both the Pipers Brook and Tamar Valley wine regions, which typically produce growing conditions that enable Pinot Noir to display all the elegance and charm the variety has to offer. The fruit retains flesh and weight, is soft, aromatic and long with fine balanced tannins and lingering flow.

Season: The 2009 season was characterized by near perfect conditions for flowering and fruit set followed by a cool summer ripening season. As a result, the fruit retained its delicate flavours, small even berry set allowed good skin to pulp ratio, with concentrated flavours.

Soil: The grapes were grown on a mixture of ferrosol (red volcanic) soils from the Pipers Brook region and vertosols (black cracking clays) from the Tamar Valley. Both soil types have excellent water holding capacity, offering a steady supply of moisture and nourishment to the vines throughout the growing season.

Viticulture: The vines are meticulously hand-tended and grown on Vertical Shoot Positioning (VSP) trellis which helps to expose the ripening bunches to the sun, thus achieving full ripeness and well-balanced flavours and fine tannins.

Winemaking: Our aim for the Pipers Brook Pinot Noir Estate is to capture all the sensual flavours and elegance the variety has to offer, giving a wine with rich concentrated fruit and fine secondary complex characters. To achieve this, the grapes are hand picked and transported to the winery at Pipers Brook where they are carefully de-stemmed and fermented in open vats and then macerated on skins to provide additional textual richness and regional flavours. The fermented wine is then gently basket pressed and aged in fine French oak barrels in our cool underground cellars for 11-12 months prior to bottling, where it is finished under screw cap to lock in all true pleasure that pinot noir has to offer.

Analysis: Alcohol: 13.5% 

Titratable acidity: 7.3 g/L 

pH: 3.35

Tasting Notes

Colour: Pinot Noir ruby red, with a soft blue/purple hue.

Bouquet: An attractive fine floral bouquet, the delicate fruit sent of strawberry and cherry aromas are well interwoven with the more complex secondary aroma’s of the savoury game meats, leather, dark chocolate and English liquorice, and all balanced by the nutty vanillin notes from fine French oak maturation.

Palate: The palate is finely stated, concentrated with nice weight, fleshy fruits, depth and delicate flavours, It displays all the fine maritime hallmarks of cool climate Tasmanian Pinot Noir with ripe and juicy berry fruits, and the appealing secondary complex characters of game meats, bramble, leather and English liquorice, all elegantly packaged on the palate with fine long silky tannins that provide just the right level of grip and texture to a flavoursome and lingering finish.

Ageing potential: Likely life span: 2011 – 2017

Food suggestions: Pinot Noir is so versatile it will match with a wide array of foods, its only limitation being your imagination and willingness to explore your own food match experience and style. It goes well with barbecued quail with blackcurrant jus, baked veal wrapped in prosciutto and topped with mozzarella cheese, fig-stuffed pigeon, braised rabbit with pancetta and tomatoes, Chinese style roast duck. The food options are endless and worthy to explore and enjoy.