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It is a generally accepted fact that Elgin and Walker Bay are the birthplaces of all of South Africa’s finest Pinot Noirs…but then one tastes something like the Maastricht Pinot Noir, from Durbanville, and you realise that all bets are off.

In our exploration of the sensory characteristics of Pinot Noir we are reminded that this cultivar has two starkly contrasted set of flavours and aromas that combine to form something mesmerising. On the one side we have the moody, sometimes gnarly elements of blood, and fungus, and meat and iron set against the prettier berries, citrus, flowers, and spice elements.

In this video, after discussing Maastricht and their team, we explore the wine in the glass, and unpack how the various sensory elements play off against one another.

If you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you’ll have to hunt this wine down in your own time. But until then, here are my tasting notes and some technical specs.

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👃🏼 The nose is delightfully Lovely fresh nose of raspberry, red cherry, orange sherbet, and pops of rose petal, alongside slightly more mysterious elements of fresh earth and chalk dust.

👄 On the palate, the vibrant raspberry acid is joined by sweeter notes of ripe cherries and boiled candy. Towards the finish, you get those intriguing slightly bitter elements of red plum skin in there, too.

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🔬 100% Pinot Noir. Wine of Origin Durbanville. Vineyards are planted within 10km of the Atlantic Ocean, at an altitude of roughly 200m ASL. They are all dry-land farmed. Grapes are de-stemmed, crushed and then cold soaked for three days, before being inoculated with St George S101 yeast strain, and fermented in open-top vats. Fermentation took seven days, after which the wine was racked off into barrels for malolactic conversion.

The final wine was matured in French oak barrels (10% new) for 12 months.

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13.24% Alc | Total Acidity 4.9g/l | Residual Sugar 3.1g/l | pH 3.66