Pre-Release 2022 La Maison Pinot Noir

Please note wines will be shipped from mid-November.

colour

Bright, deep crimson.

aroma

Intensely perfumed dark cherry, black tea, dried sage and amaro aromas.

palate

Seductive red fruits envelope a tightly woven line of graphite and bergamot tea, with lingering dried herbs, orange peel, and cherry fruit. Elegant whole bunch tannin and oak spice linger on the palate, with vibrant acidity exuding class and poise.  

cellaring

Will reward careful cellaring of seven to ten years.

vintage

One of the coolest and wettest Octobers in history hampered flowering and reduced yields by 30-40%. A cooler ripening period produced wines with intense fruit concentration, slightly higher acidity, and greater elegance and finesse.

winemaking

Hand-picked Pinot Noir was de-stemmed into ten 1.5T open top fermenters with the addition of up to 100% whole cluster. Alcoholic fermentation was left to occur naturally with no additions. Cap management was exclusively pumping over twice daily to wet the cap and minimise over extraction. Time on skins was 21 days. The resulting wine was pressed directly to 500L French oak puncheons (15% new) where it rested with minimal intervention for 13 months prior to bottling. 

region

Tasmania 

variety

Pinot Noir

analysis

• Alcohol: 14.0%
• pH: 3.51
• TA 5.60 g/L

Melbourne Royal Wine Awards 2023

Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for Most Outstanding Young Red
James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir
Consistency of Excellence

Royal Adelaide Wine Show 2023

Best Pinot Noir of Show Trophy

Australian Pinot Noir Challenge 2023

Halliday Wine Companion 2025

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.

98

Tyson Stelzer, Wine Business Magazine 2024

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. 

97