Riposte The Sabre Pinot Noir 2025
- 92
- $42
- Drink by: 2026-2036
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A fresh and youthful Adelaide Hills Pinot, not a surprise given it is from the 2025 vintage, for which the team use a range of clones. These are made discretely and see maturation in French oak, around 1/4 of which is usually new. The final wine is a blend of the best barrels. In the end, the wine turns out to be a little more muscular than the initial impression from the nose might suggest. A vibrant crimson/purple colour, the nose offers bright fruits, warm earth, mushrooms, florals, raspberries and dark cherries with a pleasing savoury note. Seamless in structure with a line of juicy acidity, there is good length here and the wine finishes with firm tannins. No reason it won’t provide pleasure for the next ten 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.
