I've been having pinot noir cravings of late, and have realised that my cellar has barely a drop. So I went to Dan's a bought a couple of budget offerings, hoping to get a bit of pinot love at little cost. Unfortunately, the De Bortoli Yarra Valley Pinot Noir, which I know and enjoy, has come off its super discounted price point, making it no longer an impulse buy for me.
So instead, we have the Tamar Ridge Pinot. If ever one wanted to illustrate the concepts of line, structure and coherence, this would be a good wine to taste -- so that you know what a lack of all these things means. Initially, I was happy to enjoy a whiff of varietally correct pinot fruit (that curious sweet/sour berry/cherry taste that's hard to describe but easy to recognise). But I quickly realised that there's nothing holding this wine together - it's a mix of flavours with no theme. The wine doesn't tell any sort of story from nose to palate, it just presents as a series of discrete sensations, none of which are grossly unpleasant (good fruit, oak in balance, slightly harsh but not awful acidity, somewhat rustic tannins), all lacking a sense of context.
A blah experience and, as I mentioned before, a good lesson in how those "intangibles" can make or break a wine.
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