Tasting Profile
January 2018
Kooyong Estate Pinot Noir comprises fruit from a combination of blocks within our Meres, Haven and Ferrous vineyards. It offers a broader taste of the Kooyong vineyard, with parcels from various soils and mesoclimates blended together to create the Estate label. Year after year the same blocks are consistently chosen, giving this wine an underlying similarity across vintages. The fruit was fermented in a combination of large-format oak foudre, large-format concrete tanks and stainless steel tanks. Fermentation commenced spontaneously with ambient yeasts, included a proportion of whole bunches and lasted 18 to 21 days. Following fermentation, the wine was pressed and racked into French oak barriques (20% new) and underwent indigenous malolactic fermentation. The maturation period was nine months in barriques, followed by a further six months in large format French oak foudres. The wine was then bottled without fining and with minimal filtration.
Bright crimson. Lifted and lively rose petal aromas along with notes of red cherry, spice and dried orange peel. Tightly focussed with fine grain tannin, it fleshes out on the long and powerful finish that features crunchy black cherry acidity along with violet and rose flavours. Will reward mid-term cellaring.
Alcohol 13.5%
Tasting Profile 2016
Tasting Profile 2015
Tasting Profile 2014
Reviews
James Halliday Australian Wine Companion 2019
More tapered than the Massale, albeit, still plenty of fruit: cherry pith and satsuma plum meander along a twine of vanillin oak, clove-doused tannins and maritime acidity, expansive and meandering. A diplomatic weave of tension, loosely knit, with abundant fruit.
93 points
Ned Goodwin MW
Wine Front, December 2018
The Estate release is always a good representation of where Kooyong pinot noir is at – in a given season.
There’s plenty of meat on this wine’s bones. It’s a spicy, stewy, chewy pinot noir with macerated cherry, woodsy spice, plum and vanilla flavours rolling through the palate. Weight, power, perfume and shape are all on the positive side of the ledger; finesse perhaps less so. Needless to say, pure drinking enjoyment can easily be found here.
92 points
Campbell Mattinson
Australian Wine Vintages 2019
A complex array of red and black fruits, spice and barrel ferment characters jump from the glass. The palate shows precision and vigour, a long sweep of red cherry fruit, guided to the finish by elegant, refined tannins. Lovely stuff.
92 points
Rob Geddes
The Vintage
The Vineyard
The Kooyong vineyard is located on the Mornington Peninsula at Tuerong, on Miocene sedimentary soils. Our wines are made from domain grown, handpicked grapes and aim to manifest terroir: the integration of our geology and soils with the macroclimate of our region, the mesoclimates of the various sites within our vineyard and the weather of the annual grape growing season. Our cultural operations in the vineyard and practices in the winery endeavour to articulate these unique characteristics diligently, respectfully and without artifice.