Pinot noirs top James Halliday’s 2016 wine ratings
The wine guru reckons a perfect storm of factors have contributed to the ‘happy place pinot noir is in’.
Good quality and inexpensive Australian pinot noirs star in wine writer James Halliday’s annual Top 100 wine list.
While in the past the varietal rarely threatened to dominate Halliday’s “20 reds under $25” category, this year the wine guru reckons a perfect storm of factors have contributed to the “happy place pinot noir is in”.
“Greater vine age, better management of canopies, automated bunch and berry selection and improved fermentation methods and oak use are all factors in the ongoing improvement in pinot noir quality,” Halliday writes to introduce his Top 100 list, to be published tomorrow in The Weekend Australian Magazine.
Always well-thumbed by wine enthusiasts and bargain hunters, this year’s list lauds a $20 2015 pinot noir from Hoddles Creek Estate in Victoria’s Yarra Valley.
“The perfumed bouquet of red berries and plums in this pinot sets the scene for the perfectly balanced and very long palate, with a contrast between its juicy fruits and fine-grained tannins,” Halliday writes of the product from winemaker Franco D’Anna.
“It’s a ridiculous bargain, too.”
Two wines from the Adelaide Hills round out the good-value pinot noir cohort: a $16 2015 offering from Mike Press, and Tim Knappstein’s Riposte The Dagger from the 2016 vintage.
Halliday says the Mike Press drop, from a single estate and matured in French oak, manages to retain its “primary crimson hue to an impressive degree” with red and black cherry the flavour drivers.
The Dagger, meanwhile, is a “surprise packed with an indecent amount of complex varietal fruits”.