Giant Steps Applejack Vineyard Pinot Noir 2025

98+ POINTS - Philip Rich, Halliday Wine Companion

"Multi-faceted and layered on the medium-bodied palate, with the tannins perfectly interwoven with the fruit. It's incredibly long and will reward cellaring over the next decade or more. Not sure I've tasted a better Applejack Pinot, which is saying something. 98+" - Philip Rich, Halliday Wine Companion

The 2025 season kicked off with a generous, wet winter that filled the soil profile  with moisture. From there, spring arrived warm and dry. Shoots pushed early; we had fantastic spring conditions during flowering and fruit set. The dry season  pushed growth and ripening along even though temperatures weren’t hot, in fact  barely warmer than average, a pleasant surprise for the dryness of the season.  Harvest came earlier than usual and moved quickly, a compressed vintage that  asked a great deal of the team and rewarded the effort with fruit of exceptional  quality, concentration and weight.

Hand-picked, fermented in a combination of small oak fermenters and stainless steel open vats. One block of MV6 was fermented as whole bunches, while the remaining clones were destemmed to whole berries and cold soaked for four days before wild fermentation. The final blend is 15% whole bunch fermented. All parcels were matured in French oak 15% new, 85% seasoned for ten months in 225L barriques, predominately Taransaud and Dargaud & Jaeglé. The wine was matured in barrique and kept in contact with its  lees before blending in December. Bottled by gravity. No fining. No filtration

Applejack Vineyard is one of the Yarra Valley’s most distinctive Pinot Noir sites, 
set on a dramatic slope in the Upper Yarra and planted by respected viticulturist 
Ray Guerin in 1997. Its eastern aspect allows the morning sun to gently warm the 
vines, while the temperate rainforest surrounding the site shelters the vineyard 
from the heat of the afternoon. The wines often show the characters we love 
most in Pinot Noir: lifted forest fruits, red berries and mulberry, layered with more 
complex notes of freshly turned earth, red bean miso, Chinese five spice and XO 
sauce. On the palate, Applejack delivers intensity and texture, carried by tightly 
wound tannins and a long, savoury finish.