Giant Steps Coal River Valley Pinot Noir 2023

95 Points - Halliday Wine Companion
“This is the big personality in the Giant Step's pinot range! Equally flamboyant on the palate, which is richly fruited and balanced with ripe, muscular tannins ensuring this will be long lived, too.” - Philip Rich

Vintage note
The 2023 season in Tasmania started cold and wet building a solid foundation with strong, healthy and generous bunch numbers. Plant growth was slow due
to the cool conditions all the way up until just prior to flowering, when some
well-timed heat spurred the vines along. Flowering was late, but consistent. Lots of shoot and crop thinning was done throughout the season, as well as some
extensive leaf plucking due to the cool conditions. It was a very mild summer with only a few days reaching over 30 degrees Celsius experienced at the
vineyard, which meant a long and slow ripening. The grapes were picked late for our vineyard, coming into the winery late April.

Vinification
Handpicked, straight into a refrigerated container parked on the vineyard.
The fruit is then immediately driven to Devonport and sailed across Bass Strait to arrive at the winery in Healesville the following morning. Fruit was destemmed and cold soaked for three – four days in open oak vats and open stainless-steel fermenters. The MV6 (from the rockiest soils at the top of the hill) was fermented as whole bunches in an oak fermenter. Both parcels were matured in French oak – 25% new, 75% seasoned – for eight months in 225L barriques D&J, Vicard and Taransaud. Bottled by gravity. No fining. No filtration.