Pinot Noir

Tasmania is the strength of this range. Pooley Wines from the Coal River Valley is represented by both the Butcher's Hill and Cooinda Vale Pinot Noir, from a family that has been growing there since 1985 and was named Halliday Winery of the Year in 2023. Domaine A, Stoney Vineyard, Riversdale's Scorpio, Moorilla and bubb+pooley round out the island.

Victoria comes through Port Phillip Estate's Balnarring Pinot Noir from the Mornington Peninsula, Clyde Park from Geelong, Narkoojee from Gippsland, Jones Road and Rob Dolan, whose TC Pinot comes in a 375ml half bottle, the easiest way into the category here.

Castle Rock covers Western Australia. Greystone brings New Zealand. Jacques Tissot's Arbois Pinot Noir Grande Reserve represents the Jura, which is worth a look if you already know Burgundy.

Half bottles make an easy entry point. The serious Tasmanian wines sit at a fraction of what equivalent Burgundy asks, which is the main reason to look here first.

History

Pinot Noir is one of the oldest cultivated wine grapes, documented in Burgundy by the first century and probably grown there considerably earlier. It is genetically unstable, mutating readily, which is how Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc and Pinot Meunier all arose from it, and why hundreds of distinct clones exist.

It is also famously difficult. The skins are thin, the bunches tight and prone to rot, and it ripens early enough that a warm site turns it jammy and characterless. It needs a cool climate with a long, slow autumn.

Australia took a while to find those places. Early plantings in warm regions failed to produce anything of interest. From the 1980s growers moved south and to altitude, and the Mornington Peninsula, Yarra Valley, Geelong, Gippsland, the Adelaide Hills and above all Tasmania emerged as the sites that could do it.

Tasmania is now the most convincing of them. The Coal River Valley and Tamar Valley have the long, cool ripening season Pinot needs, and the wines being made there over the past decade have shifted the conversation about what Australian Pinot Noir can be.

How to drink it

Pinot Noir is the red most often ruined by temperature. Serve it at 14 to 16 degrees, which in an Australian house means fifteen to twenty minutes in the fridge first. Too warm and the alcohol dominates and the perfume disappears.

Use a wide bowled glass. More than any other red, Pinot is about aroma: cherry, raspberry, rose petal, and with age forest floor and mushroom.

Decanting is usually unnecessary and can strip a delicate wine. If a young Pinot seems closed, half an hour in the glass will do more than an hour in a decanter.

For food it is the most flexible red there is. Duck is the classic. Salmon and tuna work, which almost no other red manages. Mushroom dishes, roast pork, charcuterie and washed rind cheese all suit it.

Entry level Pinot is for drinking now. The better Tasmanian single vineyard wines will hold for eight to twelve years and are usually more interesting at five than at one.