Pike & Joyce The WJJ Reserve Pinot Noir 2023
- 93
- $75
- Drink by: 2025-2032
Share
This reserve Pinot Noir from Lenswood in the Adelaide Hills is only released from the best vintages. Fermentation was with wild yeasts and maturation followed for eight months in French oak. Just 1,450 bottles made. Pale crimson in colour, this is down that savoury rabbit hole but done so well. Notes of freshly turned earth, leaf litter, kirsch, red fruits, dried herbs and chinotto. There is no lack of tannins, which are ever-so-slightly gritty at this early stage, but the wine is well balanced. Fresh acidity adds to the energy. There is really good length to this delicious Pinot which will be better in twelve months and then drink superbly over the next four to seven 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.
