Coldstream Hills Pinot Noir and Hunter Valley Wines

Last night we opened the last of the reserve Pinot Noir I bought at Coldstream Hills (Yarra Valley, Victoria) last December.

It was decidedly a brilliant drink; a very nice tasting wine - slightly more complex than the non-reserve (which was tasted repeatedly in earlier months this year, usually at restaurants in the city).

We used Reidel Bordeaux glasses and shared the bottle in the company of our new neighbours. We followed up with a 2002 Capercaillie (Lovedale, Hunter Valley region, NSW) 'Ceilidh' Shiraz (in Riedel Shiraz glasses) which was a perfect compliment to the slightly lighter Pinot taste.

We'd been keeping the Capercaillie since 2005 and was the last of a half case. To finish the evening, we opened a new bottle of Tatler's (Lovedale, Hunter Valley, NSW) 2006 'The Sticky' Semillon Botrytis and compared it to another Hunter Valley producer - 'Emma's Cottage' who produced their own Botrytis dessert wine called 'Perfect'.

The Tatler wins by a small margin (owning to the intricate balance of fruits in their dessert wine). Another top night!