Mt Bera Amphitheatre Pinot Noir Zweigelt 2023

I didn’t wake up today thinking I needed a Pinot Noir Zweigelt blend in my glass, but I’ll go to bed tonight knowing, for a fact, that I do. It’s a blend that makes sense if you have been lucky enough to come across some of the ethereally perfumed and age worthy Zweigelts of Austria. Here in the amphitheatre of Mt Bera’s biodynamically farmed vineyards exists a wine with perfume to rival Jo Malone. Lingonberries, raspberry leaf and rosehip. Rhubarb stems and pickled plums. There is a warmth of root beer spice with cedar and wood varnish that compliments the slight floral tones. Acidity is playing keepy uppy and tannins are smooth like bamboo fibres. This is moreish in every way and far too drinkable for my liking, at the timid bottle price you better buy a case or two or you’ll blink and it will be gone. Delightful, drink now with roasted vine tomatoes, on blackened sourdough with microplaned parmesan falling like snow.

Shanteh Wale

Contributor at Wine Companion

Shanteh cut her teeth at Sydney’s Award-Winning Quay restaurant where she worked for over a decade and was Head Sommelier from 2018 till 2022. She has been nominated for the Good Food Guide Sommelier of the Year award on three occasions and claims that her experience as a Len Evans scholar as one of the highlights of her career. Shanteh hosts her own weekly podcast ‘Over A Glass’ with the Deep in the Weeds Network and spends her time writing for various publications and judging at numerous wine shows across the country.

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