Santolin Gladysdale Pinot Noir 2018

If you happen to be a resident of the UK you might wonder what possesses people to move to Australia (other than, of course, being sent there because you stole a loaf of bread or whatever other ridiculous Victorian crime you could commit to get sent to a penal colony.) You have to endure an infuriatingly healthy amount of Vitamin D, people are jolly about stuff and will invariably call you 'bro.' You may have to learn the rules of Aussie Rules, which despite having 'rules' in the name seem decidedly abstruse.

Drinking Santolin Gladysdale Pinot Noir will make the desire for Aussie emigration all too clear. A place that can create such an elegant yet robust Pinot delivering flavours of cherry, strawberry, baking spices and truffle oil is clearly a location worth hanging your hat, even if there's a risk of getting killed by 30 different spices of poisonous spiders.

Born in Australia to Italian parents, Adrian was fully immersed in his family's Italian culture growing up - and wine, of course played a big part of that heritage. Adrian worked at a local winery in Griffith during his school and university holidays. In 2002 he began working fulltime in the industry as a lab technician. In 2003 he moved to the Hunter Valley starting out as a cellar hand. Within two years he worked his way up to Assistant Winemaker. In 2006 he worked a vintage in Italy and then settled down in the Yarra Valley working as a winemaker for various wineries and vineyards gaining knowledge of wine production and vineyard management techniques. This culminated in Adrian; along with his wife Rebecca starting their own wine business in 2012.

Santolin’s winemaking style is focused on minimal intervention to showcase the flavours of the wine in its purest form. Santolin’s ethos is to keep it simple. An exceptional wine starts with great fruit and then Santolin do very little to the fruit along the way except to keep an eye on things to make sure everything is moving along nicely. As a result, each wine showcases its varietal, regional and vineyard characteristics.