Nose
Shows a lovely freshness of fruit on the nose with Keith seeing hints of cherries, plums, beetroot and cinnamon. It has good acid, a depth of spicy, rich, berry fruit and strong, fine-grained tannins.
Palate
The wine is fresh, supple, well-balanced, full of flavour and has considerable length. Although approachable now, the wine needs three to five years to reach its peak. It can be cellared with confidence for ten to fifteen years.
Growing Conditions
warm spell during the last third of the season, fortunately not as hot as a similar spell in 1985, resulted in no stress for the vines and left them in good condition. Keith commented that the leaves looked good and the composition of the grapes on the vines allowed them to ripen without difficulty.
There has been an enormous flowering of the yellow and white blossoms of Marri gums which distracted the Silver Eye and, consequently, the grapes have suffered no damage from birds this year.
At harvest, acidity had reached high levels, fruit was in excellent condition and prospects for a good vintage were encouraging. The quantities are slightly down on 1987 but that was a bumper crop.
The Pinot is similar to, but better than, the 1984, 1985, 1986 and 1987. The colour is great, the fruit excellent and it has produced the best smelling fermentation ever. Keith expects the wine to have a big structure and to be high in tannins.
Bottling
23/3/1990
Winemaking
Pinot Noir marks a minor change in the way the wine is produced, in an attempt to obtain fresher fruit characters. The fruit aromas and flavours that a wine exhibits are a product of the ripeness at which the grapes are picked. Accordingly, Pinot Noir picked at around 12�Beaume will display fresh cherry aromas and delicate berry characters. The same variety will exhibit ripe plum and herbal characters at 13�Beaume. Grape ripeness will, of course, affect another important wine quality factor – alcohol. This contributes to fullness of body and richness on the palate.
In Europe, where grape ripeness can be legally supplemented by the addition of cane sugar to the juice (a process called chapitalisation), it is possible to vary the alcohol content of a wine, without changing the ripeness at which the grapes are picked. The relevance of this in the production of Pinot Noir is that when wines are produced in Burgundy they may have a final level of alcohol of say 13.5% by volume, but may have had an original sugar level in the juice equivalent to 12.5% by volume and sometimes even less. In other words, the wine will display the fresh fruit perfumes of early picking and yet retain full body and richness on the palate.
In Australia, because chapitalisation is not possible, a wine with 13.5% by volume alcohol will display the ripe fruit characters of plums and herbs. This has been a very favoured approach and the wines have tremendous power and generosity but may lack some of the delicate perfumes.
