We mention it most years we make this wine but working with whole bunch wine is always a little tricky, rewarding but tricky.

Being close to the sea we have lovely cool days and moderate nights.

So whilst our flavours are able to progress slowly in their ripening, becoming complex and intense, we don't necessarily keep all that natural acid, essential when your adding stems to the fruit - there ain't much acid in stems.

Fortunately 2021 was cool, late and carrying a moderate yield...we had plenty of natural acid.

The Murra Pinot Noir comes from our Silverwood vineyard in Balnarring.

Hand picked and placed as whole bunches in a single 2tonne open fermenter, we kick things off with a dash of already wild fermenting Pinot Noir at the base. The wine is then covered unmoved for 17 days before pressing to tank and racking to old French barriques.

Racking and bottling took place over 3 days in early December 2021, unfined, unfiltered.

Decadent forest fruits are so powerful they initially cloak the whole bunch of characters, you have to look twice for the sappy undertones but once you're on them they are thrilling, a secondary discovery so rewarding you want to watch it again.

When you drink there is an undeniable presence of grip and tannin suggesting this isn't the thirst quencher you'd signed up to, hopefully the following dark cherries, berries and outright mineral crunch leave you second guessing that thought and you have to go back for more.

We are pretty happy with this one, really happy...but also a little confused.

It'll be great to drink now but there is no reason it wont go the distance in the cellar.

“Always a distinctive style. Whole bunch carbonic fermentation and no new oak.

Spicy, perfumed, strawberry and raspberry, a blood orange/amaro aromatic & tang. Light bodied, with fine emery tannin grip, a juiciness of raspberry and pomegranate and again that bitter orange flavour punctuating the bright finish. Excellent drinking, and likely best enjoyed for its youthful vigour.”

Gary Walsh, The Winefront

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