Chatto Isle Pinot Noir 2023
In front of me I have a glass of Chatto Intrigue Pinot Noir 2023. It’s a high quality drink, structured and taut, light, insistent, spicy, beautiful. I have, too, a glass of Chatto’s Isle Pinot Noir 2021. This is deeper than the Intrigue above but in the same mould; it has a similar emphasis on structure and spice, and feels generally unafraid of the world; it feels confident. Both of these wines and indeed most of the wines I’ve ever tasted from Jim Chatto over the course of many years lead me to think that everything he touches, in a winemaking sense, usually turns to gold. His wine are like pristine streams running through a ravine; he sets up clear frames for his wines, and within these frames he lets the wines run wild.
This note though is not about the above wines, or indeed Jim Chatto. It’s about the Chatto Isle Pinot Noir 2023, which is the current release. Isle is a vineyard selection from the Chatto’s farm at Glaziers Bay in the Huon Valley, Tasmania. In general terms, Isle is the most coveted of Chatto’s annual set of Pinot Noir releases.
This 2023 release though. When I first opened it, it had me stumped. It felt light but too light; it tasted of capsicum; there was flavour but it seemed to jump around a bit. I came back to it a couple of times over the course of an hour, with the same impression. Gary Walsh had already reviewed this wine on The Winefront site; at this point I thought I’d probably just move on, without comment. I went out for a bike ride. I showered up, made dinner, and then sat back down to a fresh glass. It was hard to believe that I was looking at the same wine. The wine had grown.
There’s a frame of sulphur to this wine, which isn’t unusual. There’s a character like liquid roses and violets. There’s a mineral or graphite-like edge, which holds hands with the sulphur. There’s a cotton thread of raspberry. I’d usually describe a wine like this as tasting of cranberry, because it’s a handy descriptor, especially with pinot, for wines that come across as pale and crunchy and, most especially, tangy. I’m tempted to go with that here because this wine is all those things, but here this character is something darker. It’s cranberry, black edition. There’s also a spray of garden herb notes but they are so neatly tucked within that they’re like leaves pressed into a book.
I ended up thinking that Gary Walsh’s description of this wine was absolutely spot on. He described the wine perfectly. I pretty much agreed with his score too, for a while. I’m now though in 95 point territory. I think this is a gorgeous wine, its red notes shaded with black, its mineral characters wrapped in silk. There is too that lacing throughout of herbs. If I was in the market for a $90 Pinot Noir, and I knew where some of this could be sourced, I’d be in. It’s up with the best of Australian pinot.
