Best’s Great Western Pinot Noir 2022

If consumers are surprised to see Grampians Riesling taking it up to the more noteworthy Riesling regions, they are often doubly taken aback to see how good Grampians Pinot can be. With vines dating back to the 1860s and with more recent plantings in the 1980s, Best’s old vine Pinot plantings definitely play a role here in the quality stakes. Bright, glistening red hues. Alluring scents come out to play in pomegranate, cherry and cranberry with just a touch of blood orange rind and a small pinch of spice and vanilla. While cedary oak provides a steady background note, the palate is given over to red cherries and earth with a touch of Amaro bitters, sinewy in mouth feel, slightly savoury in edge and finishing dry and clean. It gives Grampians Pinot Noir a good name and is most definitely a wine to be taken seriously.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic