Recognition

9.4/10…

Palish garnet with a hint of brick.

Correct.  Mid intensity.  Developing.  Red fruit, oak, herbal and spicy.

Dry, mid-low acidity, mid bodied, warm alcohol.  Decent grainy tannins.  Fruits follows through from the nose. Mid length.

Silver…

Pale ruby, some brick red, interesting nose, some dried grass, hay, spearmint, dried herbs, but also sweet red berry and vanilla, then fresh orange. Palate also mixed sweet chocolate and vanilla oak and ripe berry fruit with some orange and …

Characterful and energetic, this is probably the most distinctive pinot that Brian Croser has drawn from his Foggy Hill Vineyard yet. The best clones in the best part of the site unite in a savoury style, filled with beetroot, Moroccan …

15% of the fruit was placed at the bottom of the fermenting tubs, progressively crushed. Each block was pressed separately, and clonally, then settled and matured on full lees in one-third new barriques for 10 months. A darker note of …

Pinot Noir doesn’t need to taste like Burgundy to be good. This Tapanappa Definitus Pinot Noir 2018 is the example of this.

It’s a Pinot of rippling power. Of tannins and conviction. A Bordeaux drinkers Pinot Noir, if you’re still …

It’s a firm, fragrant, spice-riddled pinot noir with blueberry and macerated cherry notes shot through with aromatic herb notes. In fact it’s quite earthen, almost beetroot-like, with a sweetness to the finish in the context of its dry/earthen style. This …

There are four hectares of pinot noir growing on the Foggy Hill vineyard; this is from a one-hectare strip. It’s planted at a density of 4444 vines/hectare, using clones 115 and 777, all planted on rootstock.

Firm, ripe and convincing. …

Sour cherry and dark fruit profile, touch more of the savoury – almost hedgerow, stem like – than I necessarily recall. For that depth of aromatics, it carries a lightness to itself; silken in its flow across the palate and …

Brian Croser’s Fleurieu Peninsula Pinot has evolved quite a bit over its existence, the style reaching for more delicacy every vintage. It doesn’t always get there, but the trade-off is a wine with no shortage of power. It’s easy to …

For Foggy Hill the 2018 Definitus is quite open for business at a young age, no doubt thanks to the warm and dry vintage. Bright mid cherry in colour, there is a powerful core of dark and red cherry fruits …

Brian Croser’s Fleurieu Peninsula Pinot has evolved quite a bit over its existence, the style reaching for more delicacy every vintage.

It doesn’t always get there, but the trade-off is a wine with no shortage of power. It’s easy to …

It’s a firm, fragrant, spice-riddled pinot noir with blueberry and macerated cherry notes shot through with aromatic herb notes. In fact it’s quite earthen, almost beetroot-like, with a sweetness to the finish in the context of its dry/earthen style. This …

2017 gave Foggy Hill the growing season and vintage it craved for. In terms of varietal character, texture, structure, balance and length, the wine can’t be faulted. It is by some distance the best Foggy Hill Pinot Noir made to …

Foggy Hill is located on the Fleurieu Peninsula, and is one of the coldest places on the Australian mainland. It creates a very unique style of Australian Pinot – particularly savoury, spicy and even meaty wines. The wines are also …

The 2018 Foggy Hill Vineyard “Definitus” Pinot Noir is a blend of Clones 115 and 777 from a strip of vines over the site’s shallowest soils. Winemaking is similar to the rest of the vineyard’s production, and maturation takes place …

More floral and ethereal in character than the sturdier 2018, the 2019 Pinot Noir Foggy Hill Vineyard delivers notes of fresh herbs, black tea, roses, cherries and cranberries. Medium-bodied and silky in texture, it also weighs in with 0.8% alcohol …

Medium to deep ruby colour with purple tints and a complex bouquet of smoky, vegetal, possibly whole-bunch fermented characters, some notes of char-grilled vegetables, all melded with raspberry-like fruit aromas. Hints of humus and Campari. The wine is intense and …

Bright and vibrant ruby colour from core to rim. Black cherry, iodine, smoke and vegetable broth aromatics. Intense from the palate entry, dark cherry fruit shows early then morphs into multiple savoury layers of smoke, meat and undergrowth. Quite mouth-filling, …

I can’t help but think that warmer years are helping Foggy Hill. Not that the wines from cooler years are not delicious, but they are generally quite savoury and need some time to put flesh on their bones. But no …

Cool site, warm year, as Brian Croser pitches it in the accompanying letter – detailed, and insightful as ever – with the sample.
An expressly aromatic take on Pinot Noir: Chinese five spice, sandalwood, something Plum like, a touch of