Winemaker Notes
This wine is a deep ruby red with brilliant clarity. The aroma is highly perfumed with an abundance of fruit, complemented by fine and detailed tannins. The palate is smooth and calm, stretching the length of the palate with abundant fruit and a refined tannin structure. It showcases the finesse and elegance that are hallmarks of the Cote Vineyard.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
A tribute to the matriarch, Robyn Pamela Farr. It’s elegant and perfumed with sweet strawberry and red cherry lift straight off, and ripe raspberry and gentle spice to follow. It’s buoyant and vibrant, with immediately gratifying appeal, though not at the expense of depth or complexity. The palate is suave, seductive and open, with red cherry, strawberry, red plum and five spice. A fleshy and fulsome wine with a great balance of fruit weight and power preceding a long finish.
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.”
Comprised mainly of boutique, family-owned and operated wineries, Geelong is one of the cool coastal wine-growing regions of the Port Phillip Zone of Victoria. Here the elevation and proximity to sea breezes—similar to Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and the southern part of Gippsland—allow the region to produce remarkably vivid Chardonnay Pinot Noir. The elegant Shiraz wines from Geelong also attract attention.