Matthew Jukes - 100 Best Australian Wine Report 2022/2023 - November 2023

The fruit is bold, dark, heady and fairly spicy, and it is already into its stride with smooth flanks studded with 20% whole bunch intrigue. It is great to have Shaw + Smith nailing their Pinot Noir because their reputation precedes them, and this should enable more Hills Pinot to penetrate the market, alerting keen consumers to this unique style of wine. 

96 Point Rated - Andrew Caillard MW The Vintage Journal 

Medium crimson. Intense strawberry, red cherry, herb garden, hint dried roses aromas and underlying savoury notes. Lovely pure juicy strawberry, red cherry fruits, fine chalky, hint al-dente textures, very good mid-palate viscosity, and integrated savoury/roasted hazelnut notes. Finishes slinky and long. Extremely fine with attractive colour, definition, complexity and volume. Drink now or keep for a while.

95 Point Rated - Andrew Graham Australian Wine Review

After many vintages of either a) edging too far into dry red territory or b) flopping back the other way and looking too lean. But this vintage, like the last couple, is just excellent. The best I can remember. Fruit source has been an important change, with the backbone of this Pinot now Lenswood fruit. What a lovely wine it is too – bright ruby coloured, a little purple even. Great nose – it’s varietal, it’s delicate, it’s red-fruited and raspberried and fresh. There is flashes of vanilla bean oak. The mid-palate is the driver here – it’s almost Grenache like in its glossy red fruit. Excellent balance through the finish – just enough acidity, just enough tannins.

95 Point Rated - Nathan Slone  Jamessuckling.com

A beautifully crafted pinot, as always, with focused fruit, subtle undertones of cedar and leather and hints of foie gras. It’s full-bodied, but not heavy, with plenty of tension and focus. Bright acidity with depth and length. Impressive.

93 Point Rated – Ned Goodwin MW Halliday Wine Companion

Pinot is a challenged commodity in the Hills these days – it is simply becoming too warm. Mid-weighted and sappy, the tannins a beam of judicious oak and whole-bunch influence. Chinotto, Seville orange, vanilla and marasca cherry. Lots of flavour and sassy medicinal undertones. While delicious, the wine is a bit simple, at least at this nascent stage. Time will tell.

93 Point Rated - Campbell Mattinson  The Wine Front

Love the tannin structure of this wine. It feels both perfumed and inlaid with fruit, but more impressively it sheets across the wine in a wide spread, integrated and balanced while at the same time being assertive. It gives the wine a bit of class, not that it lacked it in the first place. This is a polished release, with varietal red berries fruit flavours splashed with earth, chicory and dry spice. It’s ultra primary now, as you’d expect, but it feels settled, and so it’s already drinking well. Fruit and the formation of tannin here though are its main quality markers. 

91 Point Rated – Huon Hooke The Real Review 

Deepish red colour with a good purple tint. The bouquet is meaty at first and plummy and cherry beneath, with a lick of toasty oak, while the palate is firm and direct, intense and faintly gritty-textured, with abundant tannins and decent length. This has some depth and pinosity to it and would reward a little cellar time.