Take a bow Rory ‘Story’ Lane (again).

Rory is making the sort of wines that I would want to be making, in the styles that I would want to make (if that makes any sense).

Here he uses fruit from the superstar Victorian Pinot Noir region in waiting (Henty) and gives it the full 100% whole bunch treatment, largely in a bid to really push the boundaries and create something magical.

It bloody works too, the whole bunch character showing loudly with its mulchy, roast beefy, garden clippings woodiness. Crucially, however, all that stem action is underpinned by a thick red cherry fruit, carrying the palate beyond just stems and into genuine wine territory.  

In some ways this is a marginal wine, made in a marginal style, from a marginal Pinot region. Yet that’s also what is good about this wine; the character and dare only amplified by the unequivocal approach.

I drank plenty of this and even at the last glass it was divisive. Still that divisiveness, to my mind at least, is something to be celebrated…

Source: Sample
Drunk: April 2014
Drink: 2014-2020+
Score: 18.1/20, 93/100
Would I buy it? This sort of innovation and pulsating cutting edge form, for such few dollars? Yes please. It’s actually rather delicious, if a little confronting to be great.
Buy online: The Story website