There are many ways to judge the success of a wine. Trophies, favourable reviews, restaurant stockists or even its appearance at A-List events. For Noble One, sales alone cannot define the impact it has had.

It is a wine that graces the lists of some of the world’s most prestigious restaurants, including three Michelin star Parisian restaurants like Alain Ducasse, Georges Blanc and places like La Pyramide in Vienna.

Noble One is the only botrytis style wine to be rated by prestigious wine auctioneers Langton’s. It was served to Princess Mary and Prince Frederick just prior to their wedding. It’s also a favourite of British race car legend Sterling Moss.

But some of the best stories about Noble One do not include celebrities, royalty, lauded restaurants or cabinets full of trophies. They are simply stories about enjoying the wine in different ways.

In his book Crush, The New Australian Wine Book, Max Allen writes;
“It’s worth recording that the first time I drank the now legendary 1982 was in 1991, out of the bottle, sitting on a rooftop one night in South London at the end of a particularly eventful party, watching a now-famous wine writer do his Dick Van Dyke routine from Mary Poppins.”

American food writer and chocolate enthusiast Emily Stone, recently wrote on the website Serious Eats:

“Just in time for Valentines Day, I've found it, the perfect pair: Guittard's Nocturne chocolate bar and a bottle of De Bortoli Noble One from Australia. The Nocturne is sharp and tangy. The Noble One is sticky and sweet. They both taste like the fruits of gods."

Victor De Bortoli remembers his mother Emeri “pouring some Noble One over my vanilla ice cream” and Emeri herself talks about using Noble One in her cooking. She understands that some purists might be horrified. “Deen always said that when I was in the kitchen no wine was safe,” she laughs. 

Noble One has come to mean many things to many people in many different places. And that is its ultimate success.