Rhys Vineyards

Skyline, Pinot Noir, 2019

Name: Skyline, Pinot Noir
Brand: Rhys Vineyards
Price: 920.74 GBP

98/100

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

95/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

all 2019

delivery

in bond

portfolio

2019
75cl
DP
£153.59
2019
6x75cl
DP
£921.53

Broking

2019
6x75cl
DP
£920.74

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Perhaps the most arresting Skyline we’ve tasted, this smells like rocks, then wild fruits, then orange peel, then wild red berries. You can sense the paucity of the soil, the proximity of the bedrock in the flavours of red berries crushed over rocks. This is laid bare. That said, there’s less austerity here, less inscrutability than in some previous years, and it makes for a magical wine to taste. As usual Skyline is 100% whole cluster but you simply don’t taste the stems. This is very serious and deep yet not heavy, juicy but also so rocky and stony. There’s almost an exotic element, sweet spices, orange peel, baking spice and angostura appear in the super long finish. A breath-taking wine, and just 12.9% abv.

delivery information

GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of upmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

98/100

Matthew Luczy,

Robert Parker Wine Advocate

If the Rhys Horseshoe and Alpine bottlings are in perpetual friendly competition, the Skyline bottling watches from the sidelines and doesn't bother to get involved. The trifecta of extreme-density plantings, the highest-elevation site and 100% whole-cluster fermentation take this wine to another aromatic and textural dimension, even for Rhys. The 2019 Pinot Noir Skyline Vineyard enters with a kaleidoscopic yet organized nose, as if neatly compartmentalizing its dark fruited, floral, mossy, exotic aromas. The palate follows with similar delineation and focus, with lavish density and precision, exploding into a finish that completely envelopes the palate with quenching acidity and pleasantly chewy tannins. It is a superb and sublime showing from Rhys that should effortlessly age for over two decades.

drinking window 2028 - 2048

date of review 04/2024

95/100

Antonio Galloni,

Vinous

Soaring floral and spice notes open effortlessly in the 2019 Pinot Noir Skyline Vineyard. Rose petal, pomegranate, mint, blood orange and cinnamon all grace this classy, mid-weight Pinot from Rhys. The Skyline is another wine that is all about understatement. Here, too, the whole clusters (100%) are not especially evident.

drinking window 2024 - 2039

date of review 05/2022

product details

Specifications

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abv:

13%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.