Shaw + Smith Pinot Noir 2022

Shaw + Smith Pinot Noir 2022
$55, 13.5% alcohol, screwcap, Adelaide Hills.

This was released a couple of years ago and so this tasting is simply to see how it’s travelling. A lot of pinot noir – as a general statement – is released too young anyway, so now is probably a good time to check in.

This is a sturdy pinot noir. It’s not bold or overdone but it feels solid, an impression helped by firm, slightly wrenching tannin. It tastes of strawberries and cherries, red and black, fresh and stewed. It tastes of earth, twiggy spices, undergrowth. There’s a semblance of smoky, sweet, cedarwood oak, but the fruit and the undergrowth characters hold sway. This is a good pinot noir. I’d sit it in 92-93 point territory. It needs another couple of years to enter its zone.