Hotel Sola Pinot Noir 2025
- 91
- $25
- Drink by: 2026-2031
Share
The fruit here is sourced from the Limestone Coast in South Australia. The vines providing the grapes are now two decades in age. The grapes go into small fermenters as whole berries with a Burgundian yeast strain, with fermentation occurring over a week. Maturation is in older French oak barriques and hogsheads. The colour here is a russet/garnet. A sappy, briary style, quite a lightweight wine, but it is refreshing and bright. Not every wine has to be about power and muscle. On the nose, we have notes of red fruits, herbs, raspberries, mushrooms, woodsmoke, cranberries and a touch of warm earth. The wine is of medium length with sleek tannins and should provide pleasure over the next three to five years.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
