In the regular Drinks Trade 'wine list' section, a panel of wine experts are assembled to assess wines from different regions and/or wine categories. To view the calendar for upcoming wine list tastings, click here.

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The current Drinks Trade Apr/May 2010 edition's wine list is:

Pinot Noir

The panel members included:

	Hamish Black, Classic Oak Products		Travis Fuller, Casella Wines		Rob Geddes, Master of Wine, wine writer, author of Australian Wine Vintages
	Stephen Knight, educator, tasting judge, writer, industry consultant		Tom Rikard-Bell, Wedding Cellars		Roland Wahlquist, general manager, Brown Brothers Milawa Vineyard

For this tasting, panelists were divided into two teams – odds and evens. Each of the teams selected their top wines, coming together at the end to discuss the progress of varietal. A total of 18 wines were selected. All wines received were above RRP $15.

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Pinot Noir

General Comments:
Rob: So, what qualities does a good pinot noir display? I think the issue with pinot in our tasting was flavour intensity, and also length and strength. It was a bit of a battle to find 10 really good wines which had good flavour intensity and a good finish. Pinot is not about being ‘shiraz-like,’ it’s about fragrance, berry fruit aromas and silky palates. It’s about seamlessness of mouthfeel and finesse on the finish. Very few of these wines captured that.

Hamish: I agree. I am a fan of pinot, but generally I was really disappointed in the selection here. There just wasn’t the weight that I expected, and the finesse and silkiness just wasn’t there. Between the upfront fruit and the oak, the seamless finish just wasn’t there. A lot of the wines were very disjointed, their finish was very draining. They just weren’t using the right wood to finish the wine, which is really disappointing.

Travis: Out of 81 wines, to get them down to the top 20 that had a sense of place and varietal character was difficult, from a range of vintages and regions as well. While there were wines that showed similar characters and dilute flavours, poor use of oak, very short finishes. Some of the standout wines had a beautiful, voluptuous lushness on the mid palate and had the structure and drive behind it – we’re talking about a handful of wines out of 81, which is surprising given the breadth of wines we’ve had the opportunity to look at today. Top wines – everything from very pretty and delicate and part of the sales pitch for modern pinot in Australia –lighter alcohol, freshness, and less alcoholic more consumerfriendly styles, to wines that had some great structure, depth and intensity and had some great, tangy acidity but that’s two or three wines out of the top 10 we selected.

Stephen: I have two golds awarded. I assume some of these wines are going to be $50 to $70 wines a bottle, so they are not cheap. I must say in the last five years the not so good ones are actually drinkable. Five years ago, there was a lot of not such good quality ones. Most people will spend $25-$30 on a wine. With pinot you end up saying you’re better off spending $35 or $40. Unfortunately people say, ‘I can buy a shiraz for $15. I’ve only got $20 to spend so I’ll buy a pinot for under $20.’ What they are going to get is a commercial light style pinot. I think these wines fell into two brackets. There’s the bracket of the Australian perception of red wine as being fruity and fragrant. People are used to the fruit, with a little bit of tannin but then there’s the other, more limited perception, of that most Australian’s have a problem with pinot. It’s almost a Burgundian structure, where you require the tannins to age. Most Australians don’t look at Australian pinot as an ageing variety, so they are not expecting tannins. The ones that I thought were better were the ones that had an underlying backbone skeleton, with very good grape skin tannin and very good understudied oak, with the fruit lapsing on top of that.

Travis: There is a real price quality relationship with the wines we tasted today, you pay for what you get. Pinot drinkers are either transitioning from white into red, or they are already red drinkers and are getting more serious about the detail in a wine.

Stephen: The majority of Australians who drink red wine, and who move onto pinot, are expecting fruit.

Tom: I think the fact it’s not the big, ballsy red wine, is part of its appeal.

Rob: What’s happened is we’ve moved from the age of generalist winemaking to specialist winemakers and there are not many winemakers. I thought the best part about tasting today was you could see some of the regions displayed their characteristics reasonably well. New Zealand wines definitely have flavour intensity and richness. The best Tasmanians rival this. Mornington Peninsula showed well today with the classic pretty soft fruit, very appealing in the mouth. The Adelaide Hills has texture and fleshiness yet they varied from rich and punchy to fragrant, elegant yet mouth-filling. Yarra Valley showed well flavoured wines fragrant, detailed wines, varietal showing that we as a country have moved from the age of generalist winemaking to specialist pinot winemakers. In this tasting, oak had no obvious role to play. It’s not allowed to dominate. It can be there in the background, but pinot is tender and about seamlessness of structure, with oak just providing that subliminal layer. It has to be under the fruit. The hope is that they are moderate alcohol wines. Many people don’t want to drink heavily alcoholic wines. There’s a huge ‘grey haired’ market out there who want to be able to finish the bottle with their partner on a mid-week night and then still do something after dinner. Currently the consumer scene for Australian pinot is like a child looking through your parents dining room door in the middle of a dinner party – you can see what they are doing, but you can’t understand the how, what why and where of it. Most pinot drinkers are probably at the stage where they are getting glimpses of something interesting and they know they want to try it. The best wines we selected in this session will give them entry to the dinner party.

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