2023 Kate Hill Pinot Noir $47
Kate Hill and her husband Charles established Kate Hill Wines in 2008 when they purchased fruit from growers in the south of the State and produced trophy-winning Riesling and Pinot Noir. Yep, two home runs, right off the bat.
Hill had arrived in Tasmania two years earlier, having spent four vintages running a large corporate winery in Griffith, NSW. Not exactly a position where she could assert her Pinot Noir credentials. To do that, Hill knew she needed to head south.
The Hills ended up about as far south as you can go in cool-climate Tasmania and still conduct a viable commercial business operation. Their home is in the pristine Huon Valley.
Pinot Noir from this part of the world can be very special indeed, but the rewards come with risks. Cool temperatures and significant rain events at the wrong time can make ripening a slow and very precarious process. Bushfire smoke in 2019 tainted fruit in the valley, requiring producers to abandon their vintage or buy fruit from other parts of the State.
The 2022-23 growing season was cool, wet and late in the Huon. While the Hills drew in their breath and waited for their estate-grown Pinot Noir to achieve optimum ripeness, they purchased a small volume of fruit from the warmer, earlier-ripening Coal River Valley. This wine is a blend of those two parcels.
Its sum total easily surpasses the value of the wine's individual component parts.
Those Cambridge-grown vines must have really been pumping iron as this is one serious, well-structured red. The colour intensity is impressive, with ripe berry/black cherry aromas complemented by more floral/fragrant elements, courtesy of the Huon Valley.
Red and black cherry flavours take on more spicy/savoury notes as they travel across the palate. The tannins are ripe and fine, the fruit showing surprising intensity and concentration given the damp vintage conditions. Especially in the Huon.
Quality French oak sits nicely in the background. Slightly elevated acidity ensures freshness and vitality, while also underpinning the wine's medium-term cellaring potential, if that's your bag.
Me? I like it a lot, just as it is.
Source: Cellar door purchase.
The cellar door is open Friday to Sunday in July and August. Spring will bring the return of 7-day trading.
Refer to the website for opening times.
Last page update: 30 July 2026