Ravens Croft Wines 2021 Pinotage

There are currently only 12 Australian Wineries making Pinotage so it’s not a variety you’ll encounter often locally. However if you do enjoy Pinot Noir and wines with a genuine elegance in the light to medium bodied spectrum I recommended the variety and I can recommend this one unreservedly.2021 pinotage

Radiant ruby wells in the glass and morphing to bright gleaming crimson as it shimmers towards the edges, such an alluringly attractive looking wine.

A lifted bouquet transports a current of red berry and red cherry fruit and spices, the wafts also signal some strawberries that have a savouriness perhaps caused by a complicated collaborative combination with the other red fruited lingering aromas. This is a highly fragrant wine with quite lovely loquacious redolent glides that return your nasal senses to re-experience with an almost threatening addiction.

The palate expectedly primed by the wines perfume is red cherry savoury and sour with only some very little darker cherry influence, ripe sour strawberries add further complexity, pepper and anise spices provide some modest excitement. There is a lovely succulence as though you are licking some savoury slurpable red lollies presented in a silky tannin embrace. The wine was aged in oak for 8 months but what really exemplifies the wine is an elegant seamless enduring flow in which you barely notice the transitions – possibly the most balanced Pinotage Mark has produced but pay attention as hidden power lurks here!

The wine is unique on The Granite Belt, there are no other Pinotage grapes in the ground. Drinking beautifully now, four of us shared a bottle at Essen Restaurant where the superbly cooked rib fillet was an excellent match. Evidentially to excellent, when I attempted to top up my glass the others had been too quick. Note to self: Never take just one bottle of Pinotage to dinner when there are others present.

Tasted: Saturday 30th Octobber, 2021 without food and then with over several hours.
Alcohol: 14%
Closure: Screwcap
Price: $42
Suggested Drinking Window: 2021 – 2033
Winemaker: Mark Ravenscroft
Fruit Source: Estate
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Posted by Peter Pacey

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