Sailor Seeks Horse Pinot Noir 2016

Here’s a label on the rise. Gilli and Paul Lipscombe’s Sailor Seeks Horse continues to produce beautiful Tasmanian wines from a rehabilitated ‘renovators delight’ vineyard in the Huon Valley. This Pinot is a standout – one of those wines where you can taste the blood, sweat and tears of boutique scale wine production. There’s a detailed story about the ups and downs of this Pinot on the winery website, and it’s worth a read, if just for the honesty.

There’s an awful lot of oomph here given the modest alcohol. Indeed it’s almost soupy in its ripe raspberry fruit, then pulled back by late spice and a faint vein of vanilla oak, making for a wine of ripeness and expansive flavour, but still with shape and a savoury finish. I love that combination – it makes for utterly drinkable wine, and the fruit/tannin/delicacy combination is near perfect. Very good.

Best drinking: Now, but has the stuffing for several years of joy yet. 18.5/20, 94/100. 13.4%, $50. Would I buy it? I’d go a bottle easy.