Bass Phillip Premium Pinot Noir

The title of most hedonistic wine in Australia clearly goes to Bass Phillip's Pinot Noirs. The odd years tend to be amazing (don't ask me why), the even years can be mediocre. Vintage variences are probably more pronounced than in any other premium wine in the country, yet what he gets from Gippsland ground in the right years is astonishing.

I am opening a 2001 Bass Phillip Premium Pinot Noir. This is essentially a reserve bottling and given it is an odd year, I have high expectations. I am not disappointed. The wine's fruit flavours are in the reddish spectrum of strawberry and cherry. The taste is incredibly smooth, silky and seductive, finishing with a classical Burgundy-like fan of fruit and slightly savoury flavours. The tannins are well in the background, the feature of the wine is its elegant texture. It seems the wine is at its peak right now and the only shortcoming is perhaps a slightly more intense fruit concentration.