Perfumed purple violets, pomegranate blossom, give way to a “vinous” sur bois earthiness before a nice kick of feral blackberry, ripe blueberry, and fig jam fruitiness proves this wine is Pinot noir centric after all. Aromatically, this wine would stump the best of trained sommeliers.
The palate is not just big, but BIG! Got to love the huge tannin grip from skins, seeds, and stalks (stems) in this wine. Black cherry fruit is almost over- shadowed by a spice rack of Mediterranean Italian spice mix, cardamon, forest floor, browned stems, and wet slate minerality. This is a robust wine from start to long, long finish.
95Tasting Panel
Winemaker Rollin Soles hails from Australia, where grape stems are referred to as "stalks"; an illustration of him being pursued, or stalked, by the thunderbird that represents the winery appears on the label of this wine. To produce it, Soles destems whole berries into small fermenters for a ten-day soak while aging the removed stems separately for seven days under inert gas; the latter are then hand-punched into the fermenters and punched down twice a day before the gently pressed juice is transferred to French oak and matured for nine months. The resulting wine is an intensely bright, floral beauty. Cherry bark, dried roses, violets, and a zing of pink peppercorns flourish on the nose and palate. Wild strawberry, cinnamon, and tilled soil are enveloped in a distinct, stemmy mouthfeel.
