Kaiora Bay Reserve Pinot Noir 2019

You don’t see too many Central Otago Pinot Noirs priced so low and tasting so good as this wine. Intense New World-style sweet aromas in bright red cherry aromas with pomegranate, cranberry, dried herbs. It’s an enticing start but there’s more, as it moves up a gear exploring a rich vein of wildness across the palate in shades of pepper, bramble and briar with just a hint of pot pourri dried spice and petals. No obvious oak on show but tannins remain firm. The result is a pinot that reflects a winemaking style that more Central winemakers are embracing, one dressed in reasonably modest alcohols (13%) with a finer, focused approach. It’s a welcome sign, allowing the fruit to really shine.

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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