Tasting Note – Wines with amusing, clever or catchy names run the risk deflecting interest in the contents. However, this captured me through its intensity and depth. Being whole-cluster (where whole bunches are fermented to add stemmy tannins) it is rife with wild side herbaceous, meaty and leesy notes that some will love, and others won’t. But my goodness the structure, flavour intensity and length are excellent. It’s old school Burgundy-esque pinot, leaning into the ‘natural world’ so expect very lifted rhubarb, sour cherry, with very savoury, lactic and meaty notes. It is light to medium weight (12.5% abv), very firm but not austere. This entirely earns its stripes on focus and excellent to outstanding length. Very impressed!

Backgrounder: Keint-He, is named after a Seneca First Nations village in what is now PEC. The winery grew out of early vineyard and winemaking by County pioneer Geoff Heinricks, with one of its vineyard sites, called Little Creek, being the second-oldest in PEC, planted in 1997. The winery was opened in 2006 by retired banker Ron Rogers, with Heinricks as winemaker. There have been others since, with Bryan Rogers is now at the helm. The 28 acres are spread over three sites, including the impressive Big Lake vineyard on Lake Ontario, at the winery. This Pinot Noir has undergone whole cluster carbonic fermentation and has not been fined or filtered. It was aged only three months in neutral French oak.