Carrick Pinot Noir 2003 Tuesday, Apr 25 2006
Tasting Notes and New Zealand and Central Otago and Variety and Red and pinot noir
I had this wine at a tasting with some really good Pinots. It nearly stole the show from a great Grand Cru and the Evesham Wood from Oregon.
The first impression is one of fruit power heading towards the dry red end of Pinot styles. It has a beautiful dose of oak that gently embraces the wine without adding extra tannin grip. The ripe berry flavours soon glide across the palate leaving the impression of a classy wine. The fruits range from plum through to blackberry with only a hint of beetroot to detract. There was little between the top wines this night style variation giving all present a favourite. This was one of the best as it has been on a few other occasions that I have seen it.
Rated : 92 Points
Tasted : Mar06
Alcohol : 14.0%
Price : $49
Drink : 2005 - 2010
Source : Pinot Now
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7 Responses to “Carrick Pinot Noir 2003”
May 30th, 2006 at 9:50 am
This really is a classy wine for pinot lovers. Great nose, strong varietal fruit, good mouth feel and length. Quite big and needs breathing or overnight but has rated highly amongst some pretty tough company.
May 30th, 2006 at 9:58 am
I bought 6 of these immediately after tasting it at SIPNOT last year. It was my second or third favoutite wine of the evening. Notes for the tasting here.
GW
May 30th, 2006 at 5:00 pm
Who’s going to SIPNOT this year? Anyone here?
May 30th, 2006 at 5:15 pm
It is in Melbourne…so stuff it
GW
May 30th, 2006 at 7:10 pm
Bunch of Sydney whooses. BTW, the Pinot Celebration opened its bookings 2 weeks ago and 90 out of 150 places are gone already. Aubert de Villaine will be releasing his 2004 wines here. Also have Felton Road and as usual some great gear from NZ and USA (maybe even Aust!?)
May 30th, 2006 at 7:34 pm
Hi David,
“oak that gently embraces the wine without adding extra tannin grip”
This is interesting to me. One of the things I sometimes find annoying in wine (especially pinot) is aggressive tannins that I perceive to be oak and not fruit tannins (I could be wrong).
Should oak tannins (ideally) integrate into a wine with time, like oak flavour?
How do you avoid picking up those oak tannins in the first place? Better, tighter-grained barrels, maybe?
Cheers,
Jules
May 30th, 2006 at 7:58 pm
Trendy stuff has created a few problems with making great Pinot Noir. If a wine is fined appropriately then the tannic grip can be gentle. The tannin/fruit balance often goes out of balance with time. However, the trend towards “unfined and Unfiltered” etc etc can often lead to what I see as being unbalanced. I have only been making wine for 30 years, of these Pinot for 24 and from a single terroir for 10. I started off being tuned to oak flavours and then using fining trials to get balance. Idealy, when fined well, the tannin integrates with time as the fruit evolves. Once you get past 10 years the primary flavours have changed heaps eg prof Feulliat at Dijon believes great Cru Beaujolasis is often mistaken for PN at 5+ years. I now feel that it is a very complicated issue and tried to address it in our last newsletter. I am still doing experiments such as the same wine in a 225 l cask Vs its oak clone 500 l version. Winemakers get one shot a year. Pinot is the oldest grape/region and their experience is not to be ignored, but if I was to make a summary it would be to say fruit should be paramount but that oak can deceive in the short term but go out of balance in the long term. But unfined can mislead us. Thus the terroir comes first and foremost. Hope this helps. Serious Pinot makers use great oak and it costs heaps, so I don’t think its as simple as saying use Tighter Grain. Not pushing my own barrow but if you want to see the oak bit in my newsletter it can be found at http://www.eldridge-estate.com.au/news.htm