Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

• Vintage Notes

  2022 was a high quality but low yielding season in the Yarra Valley. A very cool, wet and stormy spring resulted in some challenging conditions around flowering and hence very poor fruit set. The season proceeded to dry out into December, with a dry and warm Christmas period. This exacerbated the already small bunch weights, leading to bunches that weighed up to 40% lower than normal years. The mild summer meant long, slow ripening and flavour concentration throughout summer, with some well-placed rain in January refreshing the vineyards at just the right time. The strong canopies and low fruit load meant we sailed neatly into picking with very little disease or weather pressure affecting our picking decisions. The grapes from 2022 came off the vine with lovely concentration and flavour with great natural acidity and tannin.

• Vineyard Notes

  Sourced from vineyards across the Yarra Valley. 50% sourced from the upper Yarra ranges.

• Winemaking

  All Giant Steps fruit is 100% hand-picked. Our grapes are then chilled overnight before processing. The Pinot is either fermented as 100% whole bunches or 100% destemmed with whole berries. The whole bunch treatments have a warm start to fermentation, with minimal mixing throughout the start of fermentation to promote carbonic maceration. These ferments are then left for up to 21 days on skins before pressing. The destemmed and whole berry batches are held cold at 4℃ for four days before the ferment is allowed to heat up and start fermentation naturally with indigenous yeasts. Cold soaked for 3 days, then allowed to warm in small open fermenters in order to kick start wild fermentation. Parcels are matured in French oak (10% new, 90% older) for eight months. Blended in October and then bottled by gravity without fining or filtration in November.

• Food Matches

  Turmeric and garlic roasted chicken with couscous. Mushroom Risotto with roasted enoki. BBQ Quail with five spice, fried spring onion and garlic flakes.

Established in 1997 in the Yarra Valley, Giant Steps has built a reputation based on expressive wines with purity and finesse. The Giant Steps wines are a direct reflection of their individual vineyard sites, located across the Yarra Valley from Tarrawarra to Gladysdale.

You can see our full range of Giant Steps wines by clicking here.

For more information on the winery go to the website by clicking here

Yarra Valley Pinot Noir