2024 William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir

Juicy, spicy natural Pinot from Victorian cooler-climes, c/o the guiding hands of Bill Downie.
4.7
Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars
6 Reviews

Price:
Sale price$28.00
Stock:
In stock, ready to ship
Rendering loop-subscriptions

Description

William Downie is a bonafide star of the Gippsland wine movement, having garnered his expertise from Burgundy and Australian icons like Bass Phillips and De Bortoli.

The Cathedral is his best value offering, which marries fruit from Upper Goulburn, King Valley, Alpine Valleys, and Mornington Peninsula. The 2024 vintage was shaped by a challenging growing season, with cool, wet conditions early on, followed by a warm, dry finish, resulting in a wine that bursts with bright notes of raspberry, pomegranate, and red currant, underscored by hints of cherry pit and fragrant rose petals.

Bottled unfiltered and unfined, this is Pinot Noir at its most authentic—juicy, earthy, and irresistibly engaging, reflective of Downie’s commitment to hands-off winemaking.

An absolute bargain, this sits somewhere between glou-glou and serious sipper.

The 2024 Cathedral is a blend of around 40% Upper Goulburn, 35% King Valley, 15% Alpine
Valleys and 10% Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir. The season across southeastern Australia was,
yet again, cool and wet early leading to another season of poor flowering and low yields. The second
half of the season, however, was warm and dry giving wines of great depth, aroma and tannin.
Winemaking remains, as always, very simple. The grapes were left to ferment with little
intervention and after three weeks of maceration, the wine was pressed to tank where it remained
for malolactic fermentation and maturation.
The wine shows bright raspberry, pomegranate and red currant fruits as well as cherry pit and rose
petals. The palate is fine and chewy with more red fruits as well as cinnamon, mace and clove
characters. It is precise and well defined. While the wine is not intended for long term cellaring it
will benefit from 3 to 5 years rest.

89 points - "It’s clearly varietal, which for a multi-regional blend is a good start. It’s high in spice, sweet-sour in its fruit profile, steely through the finish, and grippy too. Crushed rocks, crushed spices, crushed raspberry and crushed cranberries; that’s the flavour profile. It squeezes pretty tight on the finish, shows a bit of salty warmth, and doesn’t have a lot of length, though it’s not short. I haven’t personally tried the 2018 DRC Romanee Conti so I don’t know how it compares; I can’t verify whether you really are saving yourself $60-ishK. But you do get a pretty good drink here, at a pretty fair price. 88-89." - Campbell Mattinson (The Wine Front)

Customer Reviews

4.7
Rated 4.7 out of 5 stars
Based on 6 reviews
Total 5 star reviews: 4 Total 4 star reviews: 2 Total 3 star reviews: 0 Total 2 star reviews: 0 Total 1 star reviews: 0
6 reviews
  • AK
    Allison K.
    Verified Buyer
    3 minutes ago
    2023 William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir
    Reviewing
    2023 William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    One of the best!

    By far one of the most delicious Pinot’s. I’ve had!

  • AQ
    Allison Q.
    Verified Buyer
    2 months ago
    2023 William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir
    Reviewing
    2023 William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir
    Rated 5 out of 5 stars
    Had this in a restaurant, and now enjoy it at home

    Love this Pinot. I had some in a restaurant in Sydney, and now I enjoy it at home.

  • AM
    Ash M.
    Verified Buyer
    3 months ago
    2023 William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir
    Reviewing
    2023 William Downie Cathedral Pinot Noir
    Rated 4 out of 5 stars
    William Downie Pinot Nour 2023

    A nice smooth Pinot, slightly fuller than a lot of other Pinot Noir’s. Great artwork also, Highly Recommend.

Reviews LoadedReviews Added

Others also liked

Recently viewed

Shipping

Delivery is free on orders of $150 or more!

For orders under this amount, delivery is calculated at checkout based on your postcode. You can order in any quantity or combination of wines you like. Straight dozens are not required.

We will dispatch your order the same or next business day.

Estimated delivery transit time varies depending on your location. Please review this page for specific estimates.

Sydney (Our Vans): If no one is home and there are no special delivery instructions our driver will try to call for instructions. If the driver believes there is a safe space to leave your wine they will do so if not, they will return the item to us and hold your order until further instruction from you. 

Melbourne (Anonymous Wine Freight): If no one is home and there are no special delivery instructions, the courier will try to call for instructions. If the driver believes there is a safe space to leave your wine they will do so. if not, they will return the item to their dispatch centre and hold until further instruction from you.

Australia Post: Australia Post will leave the parcel if they have been given authority to leave and it is deemed safe to do so. To give your Authority to Leave, please enter this in the 'SPECIAL REQUEST' box at checkout.

Ordering

We want Different Drop customers to always be getting the best price. If you see a lower price elsewhere, just get in touch and we will sort it out for you. We handle all our price-matching on a case by case basis.

Some things to keep in mind: 

  • Retrospective price-matching is available for 30 days after you have purchased from us.
  • The price match cannot be used in conjunction with a coupon or one-off deal we are offering. The idea is for you to get the best price in the market so if that is already achieved through a coupon then we won't price match on top of that.
  • We don't price match clearance or fire sales.
  • We’ll match the listed price as long as it is a legitimate offer and the competing store is actually able to fulfil the order (they have stock or more stock is en route). Essentially we won't price match cheeky vendors listing wines they have no hope of actually getting for you...
  • It must be a publicly listed price. We won't match a price that has been achieved through a coupon/cash-back arrangement, or through a non-advertised offer over the phone or otherwise.  
  • It is limited to a reasonable retail quantity.

We'll treat each price match request on its merit and reserve the right to refuse where we deem fit. For example, particularly rare wines, from non-trust-worthy vendors, in circumstances we deem illegitimate or if we feel our policy is being unfairly taken advantage of.

At the end of the day, we'll look after you and use common sense to ensure you're getting the best price, please just don't take the p%$$!

No, feel free to mix it up! There is no minimum requirement. You can order wines in any quantity or combination, 1 or 50+ bottles.

We stock three different sized gift boxes (single, three bottle and six), all are available for purchase for a flat rate of $8. They look great and make an awesome impression.

To add a gift box to your order, simply add at checkout. The special requests box is your friend, please give us as many details of what you are looking for and we will try our best, or get in contact to discuss it with you. 

If you want to bulk order gifts or if you have any trouble please email hello@differentdrop.com or call and we can try and help.

 

If you can't add more wine to your cart it means we are low on stock of that wine. For example, if you are only able to 3 bottles and no more that means we only have 3 bottles left of that wine. If it's a must have, please contact us and we may be able to order more in for you.

Call Us

Send a message