2023 Giant Steps Coal River Pinot Noir

Handpicked, straight into a refrigerated container parked on the vineyard. The fruit is then immediately driven to Devonport and sailed across Bass Strait to arrive at the winery in Healesville the following morning. Fruit was destemmed and cold soaked for three – four days in open oak vats and open stainless-steel fermenters. The MV6 (from the rockiest soils at the top of the hill) was fermented as whole bunches in an oak fermenter. Both parcels were matured in French oak – 25% new, 75% seasoned – for eight months in 225L barriques D&J, Vicard and Taransaud. Bottled by gravity. No fining. No filtration.

There’s a flashiness to the fruit, the oak and also – if this is possible – the tannin here. Every component just seems to spread and run like atoms in a cartoon. It’s a foresty wine with smoky oak, nail polish, bush spices and purple flower characters on exuberant show. There’s some volume to the fruit in this wine, and a volume to the tannin too, though there’s no hardness or excessive dryness. Wild in a controlled way, you’d call it. It’s also expansive, and that’s what makes the quality feel so high. - 95 points, Campbell Mattinson