Mac Forbes Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2021
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Robert
Parker
Product Details
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Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The Yarra Valley Pinot Noir is a medium to light body wine with a medium to high acidity and fine grippy tannins. Notes of tart blackberry, sour red cherry, dried rose and cranberry. Slatey with good length.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2021 Yarra Junction Pinot Noir is very light in color and low in alcohol too (11%). On the nose, you get cherries, tobacco, garden mint, star anise, fennel seeds and blood plum along with enoki, pastrami and green peppercorns. It has a mouth-filling quality, despite its very fine frame.
Other Vintages
2018-
Wine
Enthusiast
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Wine
Enthusiast -
James
Suckling
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Wine &
Spirits -
James
Suckling
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Wine
Spectator -
Robert
Parker
Winemaker Austin Black joined the team in 2013 and brought with him a wealth of wine making experience. Having worked in New Zealand at Chard Farm Winery, Austin has focused his experience on cool climate regions developing his knowledge of Pinot Noir, Riesling and Syrah. While New Zealand was the catalyst for this Irishman’s wine making career, he has investigated the practices of the Old World with vintages in both Burgundy and Austria. A keen mountain biker, you will no doubt see Austin navigating the valley on two wheels.
Thin-skinned, finicky and temperamental, Pinot Noir is also one of the most rewarding grapes to grow and remains a labor of love for some of the greatest vignerons in Burgundy. Fairly adaptable but highly reflective of the environment in which it is grown, Pinot Noir prefers a cool climate and requires low yields to achieve high quality. Outside of France, outstanding examples come from in Oregon, California and throughout specific locations in wine-producing world. Somm Secret—André Tchelistcheff, California’s most influential post-Prohibition winemaker decidedly stayed away from the grape, claiming “God made Cabernet. The Devil made Pinot Noir.”
As the most important area of wine production in Victoria today, the Yarra Valley is most popular for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which account for over half of vineyard acreage. A gentle, rolling and rural region alongside the Margaret River, the Yarra Valley has a cool maritime climate with a lengthy growing season, perfect for these cool-climate varieties.
Two styles of Pinot Noir are possible here. The warmer Lower Yarra Valley with sandy, loam soils, produces plush and fruity Pinot Noir while the cooler, higher-elevation Upper Yarra Valley with soils of young red basalt, produces more angular and mineral-driven Pinot Noir.
Yarra Valley Chardonnay is among the best in Australia. To preserve the floral aromatics and fresh citrus flavors for which this area’s Chardonnay is so appreciated, time in barrel is restrained (though barrel fermentation is common). The best Yarra Valley Chardonnays display brilliant acidity, leesy characteristics, citrus, stone fruit and flavors of ginger and spice.
Shiraz and Cabernet find success in parts of this region as well.