After twenty-two years, Tapanappa’s Foggy Hill Vineyard might be in peak form.
This is a site that Brian Croser has passionately believed in for crafting great South Australian Pinot Noir, even if it’s a part of the world (the Fleurieu Peninsula) that is anything but a heralded region for Pinot. The progression of the wines is there too, from the occasionally dry reddish early vintages, to the 2023, which felt like it had hit full stride.
Then we have this Tapanappa Foggy Hill Pinot Noir 2024, which cuts differently again. It could be from a different place altogether.
Particularly, I can’t not see the 12.7% alcohol. It’s a light, lithe, lucid red of dried herbs, leafy redcurrant and crunch, the structure and mode flirting with underripeness like a mod Yarra or Adelaide Hills Pinot, and such an alternate style to the sometimes muscular Foggy Pinots before it.
I like it, and an enjoyable drink, but I do wonder if it was picked a bit too early.
It’s circa 17.5/20, 91/100 if we’re scoring and worth a few glasses.
For a counterpoint, I put the Tapanappa Foggy Hill Definitus Pinot Noir 2022 ($90) on the bench next to it, and it’s a different beast again. This flagship red comes off a few rows on the Foggy Hill Vineyard and has the swagger to match. If anything, I might have preferred this wine a little earlier, as there is this meaty forwardness as the secondary, dried leaf, autumnal character creeps in, with a fruit profile that leans more cherry than raspberry. Still, what impresses here is the intensity – there’s a punch here that is every bit a bold, top dog Pinot, with palate muscles and proper tannins. The longer I looked, the more I appreciated this (score: 18/20, 93/100).
Speaking of muscles, the Crosers included a bottle of Tapanappa Whalebone Vineyard Merlot Cabernet Franc 2015 ($115) in the sample box, with this wine part of a re-release program of older Whalebone wines. Ten years on, and it’s still a beast, with coffee and brick dust development, and liquified dark berry liqueur fruit. It feels boozy and warm, something halfway between an OTT Napa Cab and right bank Bordeaux. Powerful, drying and porty I can admire the sheer wall of flavour and relative youthfulness here, but it’s not my bag at all, the warmth and 14.8% alcohol flavour wallop all a bit much. (score: 17.5/20, 91/100).
