It was the second time in four years that the great By Farr family won theWinery of the Year accolade from The Real Review back in May - and it's incredibly well-deserved! Their unarguable status as a shining stalwart of cool-climate Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Shiraz has been nurtured by winemaker Nick Farr, whose parents Gary & Robyn first opened the estate's doors back in 1994. It was Gary's initial obsession with all things Burgundy (having completed several harvests at Domaine Dujac, of all places), and he has passed that same passion onto Nick, who exhibits the same endless love for Pinot Noir, in particular. Their tireless work in the vineyard and winery, with every last fruit hand-picked and sorted for quality control, has granted the family a wonderful middle ground between old-world sensibilities and new-world approachability, made further possible by those picturesque fecund terroirs down there in Geelong!
Today, as a fine end to a long week, we offer their brand new arrivals of the G.C Chardonnay 2024, and 2023's in the R.P Pinot Noir and Tout Pres Pinot Noir. With a particularly limited allocation of these two Pinots this year, due to 2023 having the lowest yields at the winery since 2002, we recommend fans jump in quickly! The R.P sings with a beautiful elegance, holding the less whole-bunch and new oak between the two, and pushing forth small yet detailed dark cherry and blackberry complexities, plus welcome soft earthiness and charcuterie. The Tout Pres is looking powerful right out of the gate, and will definitely settle into itself over the next five years or so - even still, it remains an intriguing beast in its youth, with dark cocoa, peppery spice, opulent plums, and forest floor. The G.C Chardonnay (of the higher yielding 2024 vintage, so a few more bottles are available of this one) feels expressive and a total joy to drink even now; nothing big, buttery or overblown, but instead opting for lavish citrus and stonefruit length. It feels like someone bottled a fresh ray of sunshine.
All the winemaking details and further praise can be found below. We still have some final bottles of the Farrside 2023 Pinot Noirfrom earlier in the year too (the high-point reviews from Huon Hooke and Campbell Mattinson are shown below!)
G.C Chardonnay 2024 -
Available for $175
(Limited availability)
"The fruit is hand-picked then whole-bunch pressed in the winery. All the solids are collected and chilled before being put to barrel, which are 50 per cent new French oak. A natural fermentation will occur at cool temperatures over the next one to two months, and then a small amount of stirring helps start malolactic fermentation. The wine is then racked, fined and lightly filtered before bottling 11 months after picking. A complete chardonnay." - Winemaker Notes
"A wine balanced with acidity and richness. There are notes of lemon and vanilla custard, Chantilly cream and dry tropical fruits. Despite the two notes of dairy, there is nothing garish about the wine, nothing buttery or overblown. And, whilst it is full of flavour, so much of that generosity is driven by ripe fruit and beautifully handled acidity. The GC Chardonnay is a wine that offers Chardonnay expression with flavour, and it does so unapologetically. There is, thankfully, a way for these top-end wines to taste of the grape that makes them, without the baggage of winemaker artifice. I’ve spoken before of the hand of Farr, and the ease with which these wines dance so intricately and beautifully, with the appearance of ease. It is this simple elegance that is the skill, and the intricate complexity that doesn’t appear to be so, that is the joy. As always, the GC is a benchmark wine for Chardonnay lovers.” - Ben Knight, Wine Educator & Journalist (benandwine.com)
R.P Pinot Noir 2023 -
Available for $175
(Very limited availability)
"The fruit is hand-picked and sorted in the vineyard, then fermented in an open-top fermenter. Between 40 to 50 per cent of the fruit will be stemmed and then cold soaked for four days. We use only the natural yeast for the fermentation process, which takes roughly 19 days. Grape-stomping (known as pigeage) will occur two to three times a day depending on the amount of extraction required, and the wine is then placed in 50 to 60 per cent new Allier barrels by gravity. It is racked by gas after secondary fermentation, then again at 18 months to be bottled." - Winemaker Notes
"It is easy to forget this is made from grape juice. I can’t imagine a more remote starting point to something that gives so much pleasure. The transformation from sweet one-dimensional juice to multi-faceted wine is nothing short of alchemy, or so it seems. I know it sounds creepy, but I just rolled this wine around in my mouth. Drinking it, almost unnecessary, but ultimately, too hard to deny. The nose of this wine is endlessly complex, as the previous wines were, but it is more fully resolved. In that I mean it is riper, less herbal, softer and more fully formed. The wine makes you salivate and is the very type of wine that helps define vinous descriptors like “peacocks’ tail”. In the abstract sense, these words, like so many others, seem like flummery, but the description comes from the sense of a broadening and greater intricacy, and indeed volume, that the wine exhibits. It is how the wine delivers more beauty towards the “end” of the palate, as it is swallowed. The RP is seamless. I can’t find anything to fault in the RP; it is luxurious and the zenith of Pinot Noir expression in my opinion." - Ben Knight, Wine Educator & Journalist (benandwine.com)
Tout Pres Pinot Noir 2023 -
Available for $175
(Very limited availability)
"Tout Pres is made using the same process as the other two pinots. It is fermented with 100 per cent whole bunches (80 per cent in 2011) in a five-tonne oak fermenter. This wine has the largest flavour profile and intensity, to absorb 100 per cent new French oak from Allier. A wine with truly understated power and richness—the classic peacock’s tail." - Winemaker Notes
"“The Tout Pres vineyard is a terribly good site. Apart from being photogenic and physically demanding to prune, harvest, and generally take care of, the wine that is produced from this daunting site is always terrific. If you aren’t familiar with it, it is laid across the gentle slope past the winery overlooking the Moorabool valley. It’s barely an arm’s width between rows, and most of the work must be undertaken while hunched. It is no friend to tall people, or particularly wide people, either. Thankfully, through struggle comes a more complex wine. Tout Pres always seems more delayed in how it reveals itself. This shyness is most obvious in the nose, not least as that’s the first interaction you have with it. The wine always sits a little lower in the glass than the others; it feels just out of each. The palate gives more immediate notes of peppery spice, not pepper so much, but a prickly, tighter spice with a little more attack. There is a dried, earthy note here, some cola, dark cocoa and black cherries. It feels almost brittle at times, certainly in its youth, but you wouldn’t mistake that for delicacy. It’s hard to describe it, but the wine is confident and deliberate, but there is something about this wine that is fragile too. The chalky texture of this wine, paired with the crisp yet fine acidity, couldn’t be better. I imagine is this part of the wine gives that sense of fragility; it feels like the wine snaps on your tongue. I love it.” - Ben Knight, Wine Educator & Journalist (benandwine.com)
PLUS OFF THEIR PREVIOUS RELEASE
Farrside Pinot Noir 2023 -
Final bottles available for $110
"Medium-depth bright red-purple; intense and punchy smoky and stemmy whole-bunchy aromas, charred timber, dark fruits, dried herbs. The palate is again punchy and loaded with serious tannins, finishing with good length and plenty of ripe, savoury, powdery tannins. Impressive style." - 96 Points, Huon Hooke, The Real Review
"A superb release; svelte, complex, polished and effortless at once. It presents a wild array but it’s so seamless that it’s hard to tell where one nuance ends and another takes up. Nuts, peppers, strawberries and cherries, leaf matter and woodsmoke. It feels like Spring and Autumn in one. Tannin brings spice, mineral, fruit and flowers; the aftertaste remains juicy as it delivers savoury, earthen extras. It’s the detail in the satin that makes this wine feel so exquisite." - 96 Points, Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
If you wish to buy any of these wines, please use the links above
Alternatively, email us at sales@thewineemporium.com.au, or contact us on (07)32521117 if you have any questions