Pirie Late Disgorged 2011
- 95
- $145
- Drink by: 2022 - 2025
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Tasmania is quietly, resolutely, cementing a reputation for top quality sparkling wines. Cool, wet years like 2011 is where that reputation comes under scrutiny. Questions will rise over the potential for cool years like 2011 to deliver high levels of acidity, which is where a late disgorged (L.D.) style can come into its own.
Eleven years have passed for the Pirie 2011 L.D. sparkling, if there were any sharp edges to start, they are nicely rounded and there’s the added bonus of some lovely flavours being forged during its time on lees and then in bottle.
Mid-yellow and still youthful to the eye. Buttered toast and just-baked bread meet the nose together with a summer basket of stone fruits – peach, nectarine – with grilled grapefruit, nougat. So enticing to take in, like standing outside a bakery on a Sunday waiting for the day’s first croissants.
There is depth and complexity to this sparkling with time on lees lending a particularly silky texture that is hugely appealing. Lemon and mandarin skin join summer stone fruits, baked apple, buttered toast with a smear of Vegemite and saline/oyster shell crunch. Acidity is bright and lingering.
It’s not a cheap investment to leave a sparkling on lees and in bottle for an extended period of time. The investment is rewarded once it hits the glass.
Released July 1
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.
