Ranked #23 of 86 2018 Pinot Noir from Mornington Peninsula
94/100
4.5 Stars
Huon Hooke
Medium-depth red/purple, youthful colour. The bouquet is very unusual, perfumed and talcy, cosmetic, floral, reminiscent of cheaply perfumed soap. Is it the oak? The wine is firm and bold, medium to full-bodied and tightly-structured, obviously with a good long future ahead, but the present aroma is strange. Prolonged airing helps. I'd cellar it for several years. It could well score better in time, depending on how it develops. (Next day, the bouquet had improved and the wine was drinking very well)
Tasted: 22/12/2019
Drink: 2022 to 2032
95 Points James Halliday
An attenuated vintage with a spread of physiological ripeness manifest in impeccably tuned-if very ripe-grapes. And it shows. Floral. Very! A darker tone of fruit: dark, rather than red. Blue scents, too. Succulent with the sheer fruit extract spread across the mouth. Yet what makes this full-weighted pinot delicious is the saline, thirst-slaking briary tannins. A manifest of confident extraction. No dally wally! 18 days. Real, moreish grippiness here, mitigating the fruit sweetness while corralling the whole into a savoury meld of nourishment and sappy, spicy length. Drink to 2026.
Ned Goodwin MW. June, 2023