Pinot Noir 2022

This wine leads with ripe strawberry, raspberry, and Christmas cherry. There’s a little green peppercorn, a touch of clove, and soft oak in the background. Underneath the fruit you’ll find red roses and fresh mushroom.

The palate is balanced and calm. Red fruits slip into blackberry, rhubarb, and Valencia orange. Aromatic notes of red ginger show up as it opens. The tannins are soft and suede-like, giving shape without heaviness. The finish is long, bright, and quietly generous.

Smells like:

Strawberry, raspberry, cherry, gentle spice, rose petals.

Tastes like:

Fresh summer berries with a touch of earth and citrus.

The finish:

Silky, balanced, and stretches out nicely.

Drink window: 2024–2030

Tip: This wine keeps opening as it sits in the glass. A gentle decant won’t hurt.

Pinot is one of the most flexible reds out there. This one works with lighter meals, richer dishes, and everything in between.

Goes well with:

• Mushroom pasta

• Roast chicken

• Salmon

• Pizza

• Barbecued veg

• Simple grazing boards

Why it works:

The light body means it never gets in the way, and the red fruit works beautifully with savoury, earthy, or mildly spiced dishes.

Dinner with foodie friends

The kind of wine that sparks a quiet nod and conversation.

Long lunches

Fresh enough to sip all afternoon. Throw it in the esky if you like.

Saturday date night

Elegant and calm, without trying to make a scene.

A night in

Perfect with a meal you actually want to enjoy.

There are intense aromas of ripe strawberry, raspberry and Christmas cherry. Also showing are hints of green peppercorn with integrated hints of char and clove from the oak. Underneath this are tones of blossoming red roses and freshly picked mushrooms.  
The palate is balanced and inviting. Red fruits move into blackberry, rhubarb and juicy Valencia oranges with aromatic notes of picked red ginger.
Tannins are chamois-esc which helps give a textural sensation that is wound around the fruit and earthy notes. This wine continues to give opulence and freshness into the balanced long finish.
This wine will continue to open up with time in the glass, and would benefit from a gentle decant.

2022 will go down as a very special vintage. The season will be marked with a nod to the vintages of old in the Yarra Valley where cooler conditions gave a long ripening window, allowing for elegance and intense flavour development. The weather conditions were also complimented by naturally low-yielding vines, helping to concentrate the beautiful flavours.
We likened the vintage to 2021 and 2017 so we sat back and waited a little in respects to picking to allow for full flavour maturity. In the winery it was a vintage to soak up and enjoy. The cooler conditions and low yields combined to allow us to feather the fermentations into their most idyllic spot prior to winter. Overall vintage was a pleasure.
This is the 4th release of Pinot Noir from the Willowlake in the hallowed area of Gladysdale. The vineyard sits at an elevation of 180 - 200 metres asl. The vines were planted in 1988 and the clone used is the much-loved MV6. Soils are fluvial deposits of gravel, clay, sand and silt over marine derived siltstone and mudstone.
The grapes were handpicked on 22nd March at perfect ripeness. Once in the winery, the grapes were destemmed into small fermenters with 10% remaining as whole bunches. The wine was fermented for 21 days, allowing the ferment to go dry and extract tannin and body prior to pressing. Once pressed, the wine was run to barrel for a natural fermentation and maturation before being blended and bottled in January 2023 without fining or filtration. The wine has been further aged in bottle for 24 months prior to release.