2008 Reserve Pinot Gris

 "EXCELLENT"  The Courier-Mail Brisbane Jun 09

Bronze Medal    Queensland Wine Awards 2008

Review: A handcrafted artisan wine. This luscious medium bodied Pinot Gris was selected from late ripened Winter snow covered grapes grown in the Granite Belt. The secret to this wine is that its home is in the heavens. Exemplary texture and fruit crunchiness. Lovely complexity of musk and ripe pear aromas. Palate fresh and vibrant, bone dry. Wild yeast fermentation.

An 'anytime' white wine that can be enjoyed alone or matched with a wide variety of food. Outstanding freshness, balance and depth.  Excellent fruit ripeness, intensity and harmony delivered with lovely opulence and good fruit concentration throughout the palate. The wine finishes clean and crisp with great length of fruit. This is a benchmark Pinot Gris.

The season was mild and the ripening conditions excellent. Part was stainless steel aged and part old barrel aged on lees (old American barrique) for 3 months before bottling.

The Granite Belt - at 920 metres, one of Australia's most exciting cool climate high altitude viticultural districts, with the same number of heat degree days as the Clare Valley and Cotes du Rhone at 21.5. Beautiful one day, snowing the next!

Winemaker: Peter Scudamore-Smith, Master of Wine, Viticulturalist and International Wine Judge

Variety: Pinot Gris

Style: Medium-full bodied, dry, portion faintly wooded

Region: Granite Belt

Drink: Now to 2011

Serve: Chilled, best 5-8°c

Wine that loves pastas, potato salad, brie, camembert, chicken tangine, chicken with creamy sauces, duck, turkey, quiche, egg dishes, Chinese, Indian and Thai dishes, spicy or Middle Eastern dishes, risotto with mushrooms, cheese pizza, pork, clam chowder, fried shrimp, oysters, smoked fish, salmon, spicy tuna salad, warm salad of smoked chicken, cranberry and brie mini filos, perfect with the fuller flavoured seafoods such as crayfish and scallops, Spanish style casserole of seafood, breaded veal cutlets. It even has enough texture and depth to tackle pates and terrines. This Pinot Gris is excellent with some of the more richly flavoured and textured Asian food like Vietnamese pork and prawn rolls with a peanut sauce.

WINE LOVERS CHOICE AWARDS: 4.5 Star "Classic - a great wine"   High Silver Medal equivalent. (Average of last 500 Wine Lovers' ratings.)