One of the funny thing about Alko (or annoying…) is that Alko does not take into account the vintage. The wine will have the same reference number regardless of the vintage. Therefore you can never be sure of what you will get. This is not a little drawback as many wines can differ 100% from one year to an other, especially more expensive product or just terroir driven wines.
I have planned a tasting of Pinot Noir and with great happiness I discovered that I have been provided with two bottles of Jackson Estate Vintage Widow Pinot Noir of two different vintages! So we improvised and I decided to compare the vintages. On such a modern wine like these produced by Jackson Estate, can we notice the difference? Is it a big one or a small one? And the answer is… :
Jackson Estate Vintage Widow Pinot Noir 2009 is very opened in the nose. You can find pepper, aromatic herbs, a hint of red fruit (cherry). In the mouth, the wine was smooth and pleasant, bearing a touch of mint. Soft tannins. Decent wine but I would say slightly unripped: definitely less good than 2008. Also it was not typical as the aromas reminded me more of a Syrah than a Pinot Noir. This wine was a 75 ; 0 0
Jackson Estate Vintage Widow Pinot Noir 2010 was much more closed. Not expressive in the day it was opened, after 6 hours and the day after, it displayed a very clean fruitiness, and again a distinctive spicy side. The mouthfeel was however much more convincing with nice tannins and a deep structure. No hesitation about its superiority. 2010 is definitely a better vintage. Again, the day after, it was better. This wine was a 79 ; 5 + which will be at his top in a couple of years.
As a conclusion, these wines proved to be clearly cousins but also had a distinctive identity. This shows again how important is the vintage when you pick a wine that cost more than 10€ at Alko. It would be a good thing that they start to take this aspect into account.
Alko’s description: HERE.
Vintage Widow 2010 by Jackson Estate (New-Zealand, Marlborough)