Best's Great Western Old Vine Pinot Meunier 2021 | Grampians
The Best’s Old Vine Pinot Meunier is the ultimate wine that speaks of place, and it has a cult following, particularly in the wine community and the trade where people understand how rare this varietal planting is.
About Best’s Great Western Old Vine Pinot Meunier
The Millers Burgundy vineyard, first planted in 1868, is made up of mostly Pinot Meunier and a little Pinot Noir. This unique vineyard block is treated with meticulous care and in good vintages this block is made into a ‘single vineyard’ wine. The grapes are hand-picked, hand-sorted and hand- plunged in open vats and aged in French oak barrels.
The Best’s Old Vine Pinot Meunier is the ultimate wine that speaks of place, and it has a cult following, particularly in the wine community and the trade where people understand how rare this varietal planting is. In the past decade, Best’s Great Western ‘Old Vine’ Pinot Meunier has been made in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2016, 2017, 2019 and 2020. In other years the fruit goes into the Best’s Great Western “Young Vine” Pinot Meunier or the Pinot Meunier, Pinot Noir Blend.
Reviews
Hand-picked fruit fermented in small, open-top fermenter with 25% whole bunches, basket pressed to French barriques (25% new), matured 8 months in oak. Sourced from the original 1868 plantings of pinot meunier. Prepare yourself for an exquisite beauty of a wine. It enjoys an effortless purity of fruit; from aroma to palate there’s a delicacy of concentrated red berries, pomegranate, violet, dusty earth, underbrush, and dried herbs. Superfine across the palate, almost sinewy at this early stage, but supported by firm, focused tannins for a lot more time in bottle. A lot more.
Rating: GOLD – 96 points (Halliday Wine Companion)
Medium ruby colour with a good purple tinge. The bouquet has depth and savouriness, all about dried herbs, porcini mushrooms and peppery dried meat and bresaola. It is light-bodied but beautifully textured and supple, super-refined, with great drinkability and is already starting to show complexity. Long and satisfying in the mouth. A superb example of the grape. Drink now to 2036.
Rating: 96 points (The Real Review, Huon Hooke)
The Millers Burgundy vineyard, first planted in 1868, is made up of mostly Pinot Meunier and a little Pinot Noir.
This is an incredible wine. Raspberry, cranberry, aniseed and white pepper, so crisp and vibrant, wonderful dusty peppery tannin. Intensity with so little weight, so much spice and perfume, fresh and dynamic, and so bloody individual. The finish is very long, blood orange and layers of spice. I love it. So good. What a wine! Drink now to 2033.
Rating: 96 points (The Wine Front, Gary Walsh
