Skyline Vineyard, Pinot Noir, 2022

Skyline is a world unto itself. The highest altitude site that Rhys work, planted at the winery on the shallowest of soils and at the highest density. The vigour is so low that it takes, extraordinarily, six vines to produce a single bottle of wine – which is how it manages to combine intensity with ethereality like no other wine we know. Employing 40% whole bunch this year, the 2022 Skyline has a typically beguiling perfume that has us reaching for the word complex multiple times; rocks, flowers and exotic rose notes, and then a palate that has a come-hither sweetness to the fruit, peachy fine red berries with exquisite tannins and a sense of inner fortitude holding much in, that will unfurl in time. What a beautiful Skyline this is – already offering an aromatic splendour that normally takes some years to reveal itself. Comparing these wines to Burgundy is reductive, but if there were a Petit Monts in this line up….