2023 Charles Reuben Estate Pinot Noir $39

11/30/2025

What would you do if you bought a vineyard that had seen better days and were promptly told pulling out the vines would be your best starting point for new developments on the site? That was the advice Jens and Louise Volkmann received when the couple bought Charles Reuben Estate on Middle Tea Tree Road in late 2013.

They'd spent years eyeing off the property opposite their orchard. So when founders Tim and Leonie Krushka decided it was time to move on from their 20-year-old vineyard, the Volkmanns jumped at the opportunity. The couple ignored the well-intentioned advice. Instead, they set to work, spending countless hours breathing new life into those old Tea Tree warriors. The vineyard didn't produce any wine at all until 2016.

Clearly fortune favours the brave.

This vintage of Pinot Noir from the property's 30-year-old vines celebrates 10 years of Volkmann ownership. It confirms the couple's hunch that they'd bought a diamond in the rough. The wine in the glass certainly displays good colour. Vintage 2013 came at the end of a cooler than average summer in the Coal River Valley, with around 80mm more rain than usual falling across the growing season.

Old vines tend to be able to shrug off such events, so it's no surprise to find this is a young Pinot Noir with very good aromatics and fruit concentration on the palate.

Notes of black cherry, strawberry liqueur and a slight earthy/Italian herbs/eucalypt character broadcast the valley's signature tunes, while the palate unfurls an attractive array of similar characters, aided and abetted by some slightly firm oak and very well balanced natural acidity.

Tasted over 24 hours, wine opened up beautifully in the glass. It showed very attractive, silky smooth flavours and textures, neatly trimmed by those fine oak/ripe fruit tannins. There's good cellaring potential here… not just capacity to keep well, but to actually improve and offer good complexity at around 10 years of age.

The price is very friendly indeed.

Source: Media sample