Austin’s Pinot Noir 2019

Tasting notes

Appearance: bright, mid to dark cherry red.

Nose: a fragrant, pure-fruited nose of red cherry with a hint of smoked bacon and oak-derived spice notes.

Palate: silky, smooth with gentle round edges; seemingly restrained but with pops of lingering cherry and charred flavours.

• Geelong Wine Show – Gold
• The Real Review – 93/100 SILVER
• ICCWS- Bronze
• Royal Sydney Wine Show – Bronze
• National Cool Climate wine Show – Bronze
• Ballarat Wine Show – Bronze

Food pairing

• Duck or salmon
• Vegetarian and mushroom-based dishes
• Prosciutto

The savoury, yet fruit-forward complexity of this wine makes it a versatile wine for matching with food. Pair with duck and salmon, or vegetarian dishes with mushrooms or truffles that bring out the wine’s earthy characters. If you’re after a light grazing board, nothing goes better with pinot noir than prosciutto.

Why Moorabool Valley pinot noir?

The Moorabool Valley produces wines of great power and concentration, with precise varietal definition and deft balance. The region produces a wine with the characteristics of a perfect pinot noir – strawberries when picked early, and cherry when picked ripe.

Continental in nature, we’re close to the Southern Ocean and dry in summer. The cool climate gives our wines full ripeness and beautiful finesse. Moorabool Valley has a rich history, with ancient volcanic soils containing a tough limestone and basalt base. This forms the sub-region’s unique terroir and provides the ideal free-draining soil for our grapevines.

The Austin’s Pinot Noir vineyard

Of the 150 acres planted at Austin’s, 90 acres are pinot noir—one of the bigger family-owned single plantings in Australia. Our plantings include seven different pinot noir clones, each bringing a unique flavour. When combined they produce a well-rounded wine with great depth of flavour, good structure and balance and aromatic richness.

Of the dozen pinot blocks available to choose from, we favour our Office and 4/5AB blocks which comprise the MV6 and D2V6 clones for our Austin’s Pinot. These clones have all the lovely pinot fruit flavours but also ripen later than the other six clones. These are crucial factors for developing better flavour definition, colour and tannin ripeness – which in turn ensure the quality of the wine.

The vines are planted north–south and trained vertically. The canopies are managed to provide enough light and air into the fruit zone to maximise vine quality and health.

Careful irrigation during the growing season ensures healthy vine growth and even ripening, which is the key to quality fruit.

The Austin’s vineyard

Austin’s has been located in the heart of the Moorabool Valley since 1990, a cool climate wine region steeped in rich history. Nestled between Geelong & Ballarat, the Moorabool Valley’s small, family run vineyards provide rich and intense low yield fruit, an ideal terroir for producing award-winning wines.

The Austin’s Estate is across 1,500 acres, with 150 under vine. The land boasts rich volcanic, limestone soils and a terrain that sits in a rain shadow.

Challenging weather conditions makes the Moorabool Valley one of the most complicated places to make wine, yet it produces some of the region’s best wines, notably, pinot noir.

Sitting on the ocean floor some 20,000 years ago, this land has been reclaimed by millennia of volcanic activity. Geelong’s Moorabool Valley sub-region has a tough limestone and basalt base. This gives the sub-region its unique terroir and provides the ideal free-draining soil for our grapevines.

Moorabool Valley’s cool climate is continental by nature but still moderated by its proximity to the ocean. This provides perfect conditions to grow world-class wines. All our vines are planted north–south and trained vertically. The canopies are managed to provide enough light and air into the fruit zone to maximise vine quality and health.

Careful irrigation during the growing season ensures healthy vine growth and even ripening which is the key to quality fruit.

Read more about the Moorabool Valley region here.

Vinification

The 2018 vintage had plenty of ground moisture and moderate weather conditions through spring and early summer provided ideal growing conditions. Yields were average with plenty of bunches, though lower in weight.  Picked in the cool of night, the fruit was de-stemmed but not crushed into to open fermenters for a warm soak before the ferment started with indigenous yeast. The wine was racked to well-seasoned, tight-grain French oak barrels, 40 per cent of which were new and kept in a cool temperature-controlled cellar and regularly topped up. In January 2019, we tasted each barrel, blending only the best barrels together. In 2018, the clonal mix was 46 per cent MV6, 28 per cent 114 and 26 per cent D2V6. The wine was blended, filtered and bottled in February 2019.

Season

The 2018 vintage had plenty of ground moisture and moderate weather conditions through spring and early summer provided ideal growing conditions. Flowering in November was quick, and the berry set was good, despite heavy rainfall late November. Yields were average with plenty of bunches, though lower in weight. A hot summer and minimal rain made for an early start to vintage which was over quickly. Pinot picking started on 22 February 2018, with the last batch picked on 9 March 2018. Most batches came in around 24.0 brix and lower than average acidity at approximately 5.5 g/L. The average yield was moderate at 4.5 t/ha.

Shipping

We know you’d love to be drinking your wine as soon as possible. That’s why we will dispatch your order within 24 hours of your placing it.*

We are located in the Moorobool Valley, Victoria. We use either a courier, Fastway or Australia Post depending on the location. Orders are picked up our orders every afternoon at 3pm. Once fulfilled, you will receive an email confirming it’s dispatch with a tracking ID so you can follow it the entire journey. Buy this pinot noir online for fast dispatch and contactless delivery.

How much does it cost?

Free shipping AUS wide with any purchase over $99.

For any purchase under $99:

• VIC – $10
• Every other state $20

When will it arrive?

• Geelong – 1-2 Business Days
• Melbourne – 1-2 Business Days
• Rest of Victoria – 1-2 Business Days
• NSW/ACT – 2-3 Business Days
• SA – 2-3 Business Days
• TAS – 4-5 Business Days
• QLD – 5-7 Business Days
• WA – 7 Business Days
• NT – 7 Business Days

If you order hasn’t arrived within this time frame, please contact us so we can chase it up for you.

* In warmer months we will not dispatch orders on Friday to avoid heat issues with wine during transport. During sale times please allow 48 hours for dispatch. 24 hours refers to next business day.

Returns

We are very confident in the quality of our wines that if for any reason you feel the wine is not up to standard, follow these steps to enable a refund:

1. Notify us within 30 days of your delivery that you will like a refund. Any feedback during this time would be appreciated.
2. We’ll send you a return shipping label and you can book in a pick up address and time that suits you.
3. Upon inspection of the goods returned, if they are in the same condition as to how they were sent*, we will issue a refund to you.

*’Same condition to how they were sent’ simply means – no damaged labels, wine must have been stored in appropriate temperature conditions (not in a freezer or in direct sunlight or in damp conditions). The shipment is to be sent back in the original box and include the empty bottle of wine you have consumed to ensure the package is shipped safely.

If for some reason the wine was delivered to you damaged, simply take a photo of the stock and we will send a replacement.