Dalrymple Vineyards: How a Tasmanian Pinot Noir Became One of the World's 50 Best

In June 2026, 245 judges sat down at the Decanter World Wine Awards and tasted their way blind through almost seventeen thousand wines from fifty-eight countries. Fifty of those wines were named Best in Show, roughly three in every thousand entered. One of them came from a sloping vineyard in Tasmania's north-east, five kilometres from Bass Strait.

Australia took five of the fifty. Only one came from Tasmania: the Dalrymple Vineyards Single Site Estate Pipers River Pinot Noir 2024, scored 97 points. It sells for $75.

What makes Dalrymple unique, says vigneron Peter Caldwell, is that it is “a true expression of Tasmanian terroir.”

An Estate Built on One Idea

Dalrymple was established in 1987 on the slopes of Pipers River, one of the coolest vineyard areas in Tasmania, looking out over Bass Strait. The founding ambition was narrow and has never widened: make single site wines that show the character of Tasmania's individual sub-regions, rather than blending that character away.

That focus is unusual. Most estates of this size chase varietal range. Dalrymple has stayed almost entirely with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the two grapes that find real clarity in a cold maritime climate, and put its energy into understanding particular blocks of dirt instead.

Vigneron Peter Caldwell has shaped the house style for well over a decade. Caldwell draws openly on Burgundy for inspiration, and the resulting wines are marked by restraint rather than power. Production is small and every year's release is a little different, because the seasons are allowed to show.

Four Sites, Four Personalities

The estate now farms across the Pipers River Valley and the Coal River Valley, and explores parcels in regions such as Ouse and Swansea where vintage conditions produce tiny, highly variable quantities. Every block is managed with the intention of letting site, season and aspect define the wine.

Pipers River is home. The vineyard sits beside the original winery on a slope cooled constantly by sea breeze, which lets the fruit ripen slowly across a long season. This is the site that produced the Best in Show wine, and its signature is elegance, spice and fine structure rather than weight.

Coal River Valley lies well to the south, near Hobart, in a drier and warmer pocket. The same hands and the same year produce something rounder here, with bright blue florals over dark cherry fruit and savoury detail.

Mt. Lord is the pinnacle site, set on an east-facing slope in the Pontos Hills within the Coal River Valley. It is a challenging and unusual piece of ground, and Dalrymple has only released three vintages from it. The wines are darker and more brooding than anything else in the range.

Ouse and Swansea are the exploratory sites, where small parcels speak to the variability and rarity of Tasmanian viticulture. They appear only when the season allows.

Why Tasmania Makes This Style Possible

Pinot Noir is thin-skinned and temperamental, and it needs a long, cool growing season to develop complexity without losing acidity. Tasmania's maritime climate provides exactly that. Fruit ripens at a leisurely pace, and natural acidity survives intact, which is why the wines feel taut and lifted rather than heavy.

The 2024 season was the warmest in over a decade. A strong start in the vineyard was followed by warmer conditions through summer and beautifully clean fruit at harvest. The result across the range is an unusual combination of generosity and drive: riper than a typical Tasmanian vintage, but with the acid line still holding everything together.

The 2024 Release

Four Pinot Noirs, from the entry blend to the estate's rarest single site. All prices in AUD.

2024 Dalrymple Pinot Noir  ·  $40 The island in a glass, at weeknight money Blended across the estate's Tasmanian sites. Spiced rhubarb, juicy red cherries, Asian five spice and vanilla over an earthy base, with the distinct spice of sassafras forest. The palate is fleshy and seductive, built on whole-bunch fermentation and French oak. Spiced Rhubarb  ·  Red Cherry  ·  Asian Five Spice  ·  Sassafras  ·  Vanilla Shop This Wine

2024 Pipers River Single Site  ·  $75 Best in Show, 97 points, Decanter World Wine Awards 2026 The home vineyard, beside the original winery. Decanter's judges found soft red fruit sweetness of cherry and strawberry, rose-petal floral lift, and cedar and graphite from fine-coopered oak. Writing in Forbes, Joe Micallef described a lean, sinewy palate moving through cranberry, pomegranate and iron minerality to a long, cool finish, and called it the wine among the world's Pinot Noirs most likely to surprise a blind taster. Ten months in oak. Sour Cherry  ·  Rose Petal  ·  Dried Herb  ·  Cedar  ·  Wet Slate Shop This Wine

2024 Coal River Valley Single Site  ·  $75 Same year, same hands, a different valley Caldwell describes this site in 2024 as bright blue florals over dark cherry fruit and savoury detail. Where Pipers River is elegance and fine structure, Coal River Valley arrives rounder and darker. Opened alongside the Pipers River, it is the clearest lesson in Tasmanian terroir money can buy. Blue Floral  ·  Dark Cherry  ·  Savoury Spice  ·  Fine Tannin  ·  Cool Acidity Shop This Wine

2024 Mt. Lord Single Site  ·  $125 Only the third release this vineyard has made The pinnacle site, east-facing in the Pontos Hills. The 2024 season brought early spring rain, strong vine growth, then a warm calm summer that ripened the fruit evenly. Caldwell reports real depth and detail: brooding dark fruit, savoury spice, fine tannin, and a natural acidity carrying a long, vibrant finish. Bottled in threes rather than sixes, which tells you how little there is. Brooding Dark Fruit  ·  Savoury Spice  ·  Fine Tannin  ·  Bright Acidity  ·  Long Finish Shop This Wine

Do Not Overlook the Chardonnay

Pinot Noir gets the attention, but Chardonnay is the other half of the estate's argument for cool-climate Tasmania. The 2024 Dalrymple Chardonnay is the accessible expression, and the 2024 Single Site Estate Coal River Valley Chardonnay shows what a warm, dry season does to the variety in the south of the island.

Where to Start, and How to Serve It

If Dalrymple is new to you, open the $40 estate Pinot Noir first and see whether the house style suits you. If it does, the Pipers River is where the estate makes its real case, and it happens to be the wine the world just voted into its top fifty. Buy the Pipers River and the Coal River Valley together if you want to understand what site actually means, because everything except the ground is identical between them.

Serve these cooler than you might expect for red wine, around 15 to 16 degrees. Decant the single sites for an hour. They are built on tension rather than force, and they need air to open up. Duck, quail, venison, mushroom dishes and roast beetroot all sit comfortably alongside them.

On cellaring, the entry Pinot Noir is delicious now and will hold for five or six years. The single site wines will reward a decade, and the best vintages of Mt. Lord considerably longer.