The wine typically shows a soft perfumed nose, which begins to build. The palate has sweetness, followed by mineral overtones enhanced by toasty oak, and firm flavours with a long and savoury finish. This is a gem of a wine, with ageing potential of five to eight years from most vintages.

The Farr Rising pinot vineyard was planted in 2001 using a large mixture of rootstocks, but only three clones—MV6, 114 and 115. It is a very exposed and hungry north-facing slope, consisting of grey sandy loam mixed with an ironstone pebble (buckshot) at the top. This leads into black volcanic soil over limestone at the bottom of the vineyard.

The fruit is hand harvested, and then sorted in the vineyard. The fruit is fermented in an open-top fermenter, and an average 60 to 70 per cent of it is destemmed. The wine is placed in 20 to 30 per cent new Allier barrels by gravity. It is racked by gas after secondary fermentation, then again at 18 months to be bottled. Over time, the site has shown that it can certainly stand up to its bigger brothers.

Vintage 2023 – by Farr

After three solid years of rain the team had hoped for some different growing conditions. Unfortunately not, a cool and wet Spring in 2022 meant that there was severe disease pressure and constant canopy management required up until Christmas. Because of the two previous growing seasons the team was well aware of what was required and did an amazing job once again. Crop levels certainly seemed below average because of the cool and windy conditions, particularly in the chardonnay sites.
With frequent rain events throughout January and early February the ripen period was making little progress until we finally saw extended days into weeks of dryer and warmer weather. The welcome relief started to show us signs of delicate, super fine flavours, driven by high acidities.
Our first day of picking was set for the 16 th March, we decided to hedge our bets and pick a little Chardonnay from the Copper block and a couple of tons of Pinot from the Windmill block. With acidity still quite high and looking for balance of flavours we decided to not pick again until the 20 th March. We harvested our last fruit in Bannockburn on the 6 th April, and Irrewarra fruit on the 14th April.