Tasting Note I tasted this beside the supple, generous 2022 that charmed the Judgement of Kingston 2025 as the People’s Choice. The 2023 is similarly pale, and bearing very similar flavours with classic, lifted County sour cherry, strawberry and raspberry, nicely integrated with forest floor, considerable barrel spice and an acceptable subtext of acetone. But it is firmer, more linear, quite elegant, compact and sour-edged. It has 12.5% ABV, compared to 11.5% for the 2022. There is some brittle tannin (more than 2022) but it is not unbalancing. Excellent flavour intensity and length here. I would age it a year or two then enjoy through mid 2030s.
Backgrounder In 2003 retired McGill University professor and amateur winemaker Cliff Stanners and his wife Dorothy purchased a field on the “outskirts” of the hamlet of Hillier. In 2005 they began high-density planting of 7.5 acres of pinot noir in clay loam soils “riddled with chunks of limestone.” Their son, Colin, who had studied oenology at UC Davis in California, and daughter in law, Mary, joined the team. In 2009 they began building a very cozy and clever straw-bale winery, and it opened in 2010. They have continued to rack up awards. This pinot vintage is 60% estate fruit and 40% fruit purchased from the Devils Wishbone site near Picton, with its slightly darker fruit character. Believing in gentle handling, “the grapes were destemmed to whole berries without crushing and fermented in one tonne bins for two to three weeks with punch downs done by hand.” After gently pressing, the wine was aged in French oak barrels for 20 months.
