A bouquet of ripe red fruits of cherry, blackberry and plums, integrated with layers of oak delivering spice, dark chocolate and subtle vanilla. The rich palate has concentrated blackberry, plum, and cassis combining with dark chocolate, espresso, and oak-derived vanillin.

This wine has plenty going for it, including all those delicious flavours that make Kiwi Pinot adored across the world. It's a concentrated but elegant wine with dark cherry aromas with complex notes of mocha and cinnamon. Luscious bramble, cherry and spice give generous length to the palate.

PIERRE-YVES COLIN-MOREY, Bourgogne Hautes Cotes de Beaune blanc

This wine is named after this Schlossberg lieu-dit’s cadastral name, Au Château. The building referenced in the name is the iconic Château de Kaysersberg, whose ruins preside over the town and lie a stone’s throw from the western boundary of the Schlossberg Grand Cru. With precious few bottles, we have yet to taste this release. However, Eddy Faller explains that the granitic soils give this bottling a more linear and ‘smoky’ mineral style compared to the rounder, more supple limestone-raised Altenbourg. Cropped from steeply terraced, pre-clonal era 1960s vines, it was fermented with 20% bunches and aged for two years in Burgundian barrels (20% new); Pigott’s note below reflects a terrific year for Alsace Pinot and the great strides Weinbach has made under the current generation

Mud House have asserted a reputation for Pinot Noir in a crowded New Zealand marketplace by proving excellent varietal and terroir driven examples like this Golden Terraces Vineyard Pinot Noir from Central Otago at some great prices. With lifted aromas of dark cherry and berry fruit with underlying notes of mocha and cinnamon giving way to a sumptuous palate of bramble and spice characters with considerable length.