Pyren Vineyard Earthscape Franc 2023
$50, 12.5% alcohol, screwcap, Pyrenees.
This is a wine of energy and inherent complexity. It’s light-ish but it has lots to offer. It tastes of boysenberry, red cherry, hay, tobacco and mint, with everything rolling juicily together before finishing with a dry, savoury neatness. This is a wine of ‘soft skills’, if you will. It doesn’t speak loud but it does speak well. 93 points.
Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He founded The Winefront, is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion (and former editor of Halliday magazine), and is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is 100% independent, and tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines each year, blind and in comparative brackets as often as is practicable.
Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.
