MELBOURNE ROYAL WINE AWARDS 2023
Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for Most Outstanding Young Red
James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir
ROYAL ADELAIDE WINE SHOW 2023
Best Pinot Noir of Show Trophy
AUSTRALIAN PINOT NOIR CHALLENGE 2023
Best Pinot Noir
HALLIDAY WINE COMPANION 2025, 98 POINTS.
Boom! You'll probably have to scurry around to secure some bottles of this, as it won the coveted Jimmy Watson Trophy at the 2023 Melbourne Royal Wine Awards, but it is worth the hunt. It's a beautiful wine with a brilliant ruby hue in the glass and aromas of ripe dark cherry, dried cranberry and raspberry coulis underlined by hints of souk-like spice, amaro herbs from the whole-bunch component, pomegranate, tea leaves, char siu, dried citrus rind, sage and Peking duck. Wonderfully composed and silken on the palate with pitch-perfect fruit expression and bunch tannins; textural and complex with a lacy, mineral acid cadence and a finish that lingers for a long time with exotic spice and pure red and dark fruits. Such a beauty.
TYSON STELZER, WINE BUSINESS MAGAZINE 2024, 97 points.
The most sublime Australian Pinot Noir I have ever tasted. After I named the 2020 vintage of Pinot Noir of the Year in the Halliday Wine Companion, if it wasn't already clear that the old Pinot vines of the Lowestoft vineyard are among the finest in the country, the 2023 Jimmy Watson for the 2022 confirmed it. There is a resolute confidence to this site, intricately preserved by Liam McElhinney and his team. Deep black fruit complexity, lifted violet and rose petal perfume, evocative exotic spice, velvet-fine tannins and brilliant natural acidity.
