The island state of Tasmania, south of Victoria is home to the Tasmanian Devil but it is also Australia’s coolest wine region. Vineyards here benefit from many hours of summer sunlight, but average temperatures tend to be much lower than mainland Australia. In the era of climate change, this makes Tasmanian wine very cool indeed and it has rapidly gained a reputation for being a premium wine region for Pinot Noir. Tasmanians are particularly fond of their own wine and only about a quarter of the wine produced from their vineyards escapes from the island itself.
The featured Red Wine for May is the 2019 Tamar Ridge Pinot Noir. Tamar Ridge is a small northern Tasmanian winery, specialising in top quality cool-climate wines made from grapes grown in the Tamar River valley. The 2019 Tamar Ridge Pinot Noir is a silky smooth and stylish example. It has ripe up-front fruit flavours of cherry and strawberries. This intensity of ripe fruit gives round mouth-filling flavours leading to a long gentle finish with supple, silky tannins and excellent length and persistence.
Tamar Ridge Pinot has recently featured on the winelist of The Peat Inn, the Michelin starred restaurant in St Andrews, Scotland.
