Bass Phillip Estate Pinot Noir 2021

From a favourable vintage with slow ripening conditions. The 2021 Estate Pinot Noir has fragrant potpourri of aromas, rose petals and red berry notes, with a hint of Oolong tea. The palate is delightful, classic iron fist in a velvet glove stuff. A lush fruit drives the mid palate, enveloped by powdery tannins with delicious flavours that dance delicately across the palate.

Bass Phillip's Pinot Noirs are some of Australia’s most sought after. They sell on allocation, are hard to find on the secondary market and the wines have been showered with accolades by Australian and international critics alike. In 2020 Australian wine writer Max Allen called Bass Phillip ‘the DRC of the southern hemisphere’. But the French Burgundian connections don't end there, since 2020, Bass Phillip wines has been owned by and made in consultation with Burgundy legend, Jean-Marie Fourrier, adding yet another layer of prestige to the domaine.

For winemaking bunches are carefully sorted upon arrival at the winery on a sorting table then conveyed to a 'state of the art' incline destemmer. The whole berries are gently conveyed directly to open fermenters. A natural ferment starts usually within 4 days but hand plunging commences from the start until draining/pressing. Usually between 10-14 days from harvest, the wine is drained, the skins pressed gently and combined with the free run wine which is settled for a week or so before racking to barrel using gravity. Malolactic occurs naturally in barrel. The Estate Pinot is a selection of the best barrels of our Leongatha vineyard of which 22% were new this year. All barrels are lightly toasted and extra tight grain oak. Barrels are topped and checked regularly. Wine stays in barrel for 14 months, then it simply gravity decanted off the settled lees. No fining of any sort, or filtration before bottling in July 2022.