By Farr Farrside Geelong Pinot Noir 2019

The medium-ruby 2018 Farrside Pinot Noir is just another exhibit in the case that color intensity and flavor intensity—particularly in Pinot Noir—have little to do with one another. The wine features complex aromas of black tea, roses, grilled plums and fresh raspberries, and those notes are repeated on the medium-bodied palate. There's a bit more expansiveness to this wine compared to the Sangreal, and the tannins are even silkier here, but quality-wise the two wines are basically equivalent.

This delivers a very complex, rather full, ripe and dense pinot with a savory nose, delivering aromas of spiced earth, forest berries and dried red plums. The palate has plenty of power, muscular dark cherries and red plums, which are framed in bold, sinewy tannins. Try this in a few years. Best from 2022.

Clones 114, 115, 667 and MV6, hand-picked and sorted, 60-70% destemmed, 4 days cold soak, wild-fermented, pigeaged 2-3 times daily, matured for 18 months in French oak (50-60% new). Good colour; the bouquet, while complex, is the calm before the storm of the palate, which strikes the second the wine enters the mouth, and doesn?t abate until long after the wine has gone from the glass. Its great character is the fusion of plum/black cherry fruit with a savoury carpet of spices and sweet earth. Quite simply, a very great pinot.