Only three vintages in and the Pinot Noirs from Peter Dredge are now some of the most hotly anticipated releases out of Tasmania. The 2017s are sensational.
This looks like Dredgy's best release to date.
The 2017 vintage across Tasmania offered supreme quality for Pinot Noir but little quantity. Lower yields equaling smoking top-shelf fruit for Dredge to play with. He took full advantage.
There are four Pinot Noir releases: North, South, East and the Tasmanian blend. They are made almost identically, in the same (tiny) batch size. The regional characteristics all that separates them.
North
North comes from Joe Holyman's vineyard, Joe is one of Tasmania's leading grape-growing vignerons. The North Pinot Noir is the darker, smokier, more brooding of the four and arguably the most compelling.
96+ points
"Woah. Pow pow powerful, yet light too. Dark cherries, damp earth, spice, maybe some cheeky violet, but a brooding kind of ‘minerality’ throughout. Tannin is firm, a long emery rasp through the palate, pure acidity, perfume, earth and grip on a long finish. There’s some meatiness and smoky reductive stuff here, for sure, but the fruit and vineyard shines through. I’m all about this. Wonderful."
- Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)
South
South is the pretty one. Grown on the Meadowbank vineyard in the Derwent Valley where Dredge has recently rejuvenated the Meadowbank Wines label.
95+ points
"Fine perfume, pretty and floral, strawberries dusted with pepper and spice, smoky autumn leaves and walks in the park. It’s delicate, rose petals over strawberry, cool bell-clear acidity, a playful rasp of tannin, and a spicy strawberry finish of impeccable length. Lacy, delicate wine. Diaphanous and thoroughly charming. Oh yes."
- Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)
East
East comes from volcanic soils and you can feel it in the gravelly tannin. Crisp-edged and nervy in style, this is the mineral backbone of the Tasmanian blend.
94+ points
"This is sappy, crunchy, and quite stalky, with layers of spice, red fruits mainly, and a tense bony feel. It’s savoury and sappy, structure over flavour to an extent, but does carry through the palate and finish very well. Really like how the tannin and sappy acidity gives it a nervous energy. It’s really very good, but needs a few years to relax."
- Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)
Tasmania
The
Tasmania Pinot Noir is a blend of the three single vineyards, with, as Dredge puts it,
"some additional clones and techniques thrown around to elicit emotion from wine journalists."
95 points
" I like the complexity of the Tasmania blend, the whole greater than the sum of its parts kind of thing.
Spicy, nutty, smoky thing, but the cherry and red fruit rises above, and there’s maybe a bit of a cracked wheat thing going on here too, and some rose petal. It’s light to medium-bodied, almost chewy in a way, though certainly you might call it ‘sinewy’, smoked meat, stalks and spice, ‘minerally’ acidity, and a long finish that offers grip, spice and sour cherry as it moves down the throat. It’a what you might call a very ‘adult’ style of Pinot Noir, but also very good."
- Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)
The August allocations are extremely limited as people scramble for the precious few bottles made of these future collectables.
All except the Tasmania Pinot Noir are sold out. To get your own slice of Dr. Edge for 2017 click here.
