The Story
The most capricious of varieties, Pinot is however capable of breathtaking magnificence as no other red wine when terroir, season and man meet in the right coincidence. Although these are early days Pinot seems to feel at home in our vineyard with the rigours of a cold southwest Victorian climate. Our 2003 crop was half of our usual low yield at less than ½ tonne/acre and only 200 cases have been produced. A cool rather wet spring/summer was followed by a beautiful mild autumn allowing perfect slow ripening of the small crop. Handpicked on April 12, fruit was partially destemmed into small open fermenters with natural wild ferment in its own time and gentle hand plunging. After a long slow ferment, pressed and gravity transferred to small fine grained French oak, natural malolactic ferment occurred with the warmth and new life of spring. Falling bright with gravity our wines are neither fined nor filtered and in some years show an opaque richness as testament to this natural process. Bottled by hand using natural corks, our wine of course contains no animal products or GMOs.