Shaw + Smith Lenswood Vineyard Pinot Noir 2023

If you have ever wondered about the meaning of ‘brooding’ used in a wine tasting note, here it is. It’s dark, it’s quixotic, it arrives in scents of dark rose, rosehip, wild blueberry, black cherry, dried leaves, undergrowth, earth and dark-roasted spices. In other words, it fills the senses with dark, elemental, atmospheric qualities. Comes together in a slow dance across the palate, nothing hurried, unwinding in dark fruits, spices with additional cranberry notes and blood orange peeking out from some well-laid and expensive French vanillin oak. The fruit is up to the task set by the oak, but some more time in the bottle would be advised in order to reach its optimum. Comes together well: tannins are fine and acidity shines. Everything is in readiness.

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