Shaw + Smith Pinot Noir / 2025 / 750mL

The Shaw + Smith Pinot Noir 2025 from the Adelaide Hills is a bright, medium-bodied red built around red fruit and fine tannin rather than power. It has the perfume and lift you'd hope for from a cool-climate South Australian Pinot Noir, with enough structure to reward a few years in the rack.

Aromatically it leads with red cherry, raspberry and a touch of rhubarb, backed by dried thyme, pink peppercorn and a faint earthiness that keeps things savoury. The palate follows the same line — juicy cherry and cranberry up front, then a darker plummy note through the middle, with a whisper of orange zest on the edges. Tannins are fine and powdery, framing the fruit without drying it, and the acidity runs clean and cool from start to finish. The wine is more sinewy than plush, which is what gives it length: the finish tapers slowly on red fruit skin and herb rather than sweetness.

Serve it at around 15°C, and give the bottle twenty minutes open if you're drinking it young. It suits roast duck, mushroom risotto, char-grilled quail or a plate of jamón and hard cheese. Drinking well from now, and it should hold and gain complexity through to about 2032.