Pike & Joyce Adelaide Hills "W.J.J." Reserve Pinot Noir 2025 - Adelaide Hills, Australia

95/100 Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion
95/100 Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot (2024 vintage)
95/100 Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion (2024 vintage)
96/100 Ray Jordan, Wine Pilot (2023 vintage)
93/100 Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion (2023 vintage)

5 Star - Halliday Wine Companion

Bronze - Royal Adelaide Wine Show (2024 vintage)
Bronze - Australian Pinot Noir Challenge (2022 vintage)
Bronze - Adelaide Hills Wine Show (2022 vintage)
Bronze - Royal Adelaide Wine Show (2022 vintage)

Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion "A sleek and elegant offering of pinot noir with fragrance and finesse on its side. Compact in texture, with rivulets of granitic minerality set within fine, fresh red cherry and pomegranate juice, all dusted with cinnamon and pepper, laced with alpine herb and faint Aussie bush characters. Very fresh feeling; quality tannin lends shape and that sense of refinement. This feels like one that should cellar very well, too. Spot on."

Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot "The excellent 2024 vintage has provided a number of thoroughly impressive bottles of Pinot Noir from Lenswood in the Adelaide Hills, and elsewhere from the Hills of course, and now we can add this cracker to the list. Fermentation was with wild yeasts and maturation was for eight months in French oak. Maroon/purple hue, this is an impressively fragrant Pinot. We have notes of plums, leaf litter, kirsch, charcuterie and cassis. Supple and sleek, this is finely focused with good energy through to silky tannins. Love it. This should drink beautifully over the next decade. A superb Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir." (2024 vintage)

Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion "This has some depth and charisma, richness and svelte lines. Loads of perfume in maraschino cherries, some pleasing sweet, spicy oak that meshes in well, raspberry, red licorice, truffle and nutmeg. The texture feels sumptuous and rich but has a coolness, too. There's a polish, gloss and sheen to this. Substantial with great pinosity. A very charming wine." (2024 vintage)

Ray Jordan, Wine Pilot "This wine honours the co-founder of Pike and Joyce and is only released in exceptional vintages. The colour is quite brilliant, with deep crimson notes evident. The aroma is compelling and captivating from the start, with a combination of strawberry and cherry with deeper plummy notes working in against a backdrop of high-end florals and typical spicy characters. The palate is complex, layered, engaging, and interwoven with many things happening. Primary aromas of roses and a sort of dark forest floor truffly nuanced with spicy lifts and a touch of herbal notes adding further to it. It’s medium to light-bodied but has some power as it drives purposefully to a long finish framed by fine-grained chalky tannins and an excellent use of oak. This wine comes from quite an elevated site and shows both impeccable winemaking and classy quality fruit." (2023 vintage)

Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion "This is a vibrant, fruit-forward pinot noir, loaded with sweet cherry, brown spice, truffle and milk chocolate scents and flavours, all dusted with clove spice and some twiggy, woody elements lending savouriness. It feels pretty in its way, ultimately a very engaging, easy-to-get-stuck-into and polished kind of feel. It slips into a lighter-weight category but doesn't feel light-on in expression either. Lots of charm here, and a touch of understated class." (2023 vintage)

This is a partnership between the Pike family (of Clare Valley fame) and the Joyce family, related to Andrew Pike’s wife, Cathy.

The winery is situated in Lenswood, which is a subregion of the Adelaide Hills. The Adelaide Hills region is well-known for its cool climate, high-altitude vineyards, and diverse range of premium cool-climate wines.

The Joyce family have been orchardists at Lenswood for over 100 years and also have extensive operations in the Riverland. Together with Andrew they have established this vineyard site, which was previously apple and pear orchards, is characterized by steep North and East facing slopes and possesses fantastic gravelly clay and loam soils which are ideally suited to the classic cool climate varieties that have been planted – Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Gris, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. to sauvignon blanc (5.9ha), pinot noir (5.73ha), pinot gris (3.22ha), chardonnay (3.18ha) and semillon (0.47ha). The wines are made at the Pikes’ Clare Valley winery and exported around the world.

The vineyard is all hand pruned and handpicked with the fruit being chilled overnight in the Joyce cool rooms. Traditional old world techniques as well as modern Australian winemaking are incorporated to produce a style which reflects the variety and region."

Pike & Joyce owns and operates vineyards covering around 32 hectares in the Lenswood area of Adelaide Hills. The vineyards are planted at varying altitudes, providing an excellent opportunity to grow a variety of grape varieties that thrive in the cool climate.

Pinot Noir is the dominant red wine grape of Burgundy, now produced in wine regions all over the world, including western Germany, northern Italy, Chile, South Africa, Australia and, perhaps most notably, California, Oregon and New Zealand.

The essence of Pinot Noir wine is its aroma of strawberry and cherry (fresh red cherries in lighter wines and stewed black cherries in weightier examples), underpinned in the most complex examples by hints of forest floor. Well-built Pinot Noirs, particularly from warmer harvests, also exhibit notes of leather and violets, sometimes approaching the flavor spectrum of Syrah.