Charles Reuben Pinot Noir Parcel 35 2024

Takes a walk on the wild side of Pinot Noir leading you into a rich, textural tapestry of flavours and textures. But first, allow for a decant or some swishes of air, it’s pretty tight and focussed. Deep red hues. Scents of rich dark chocolate, earth, leaf, stems, ripe black berries. The employment of whole bunches (10%) and 18 months in oak has dealt the Pinot a strong tannin focus and, with it, the potential for further ageing. In fact, it is almost too soon to be opening this Pinot, not when it clearly is still coming together. There is a deceptive power in waiting in this rich melding of fruit, oak and elevated herbal presence. The palate’s ripe dark berries, plum, head through a wild array of dried autumnal leaves, undergrowth, earth and wild herbs before finishing on a lingering tannin dry note.

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