Wantirna Estate 'Lily' Pinot Noir 2023

6 bottles - that's our allocation for the 2023 vintage!

The vineyard has three distinct blocks of Pinot Noir, all hand-harvested separately. Despite the vineyard area being only 10 acres in total, the different blocks each deliver unique characters, and often there is up to two weeks’ difference in the harvest dates. The mature block—with vines dating back to the early 1970s—gives the wine its savoury tones and fine tannins. The Front block fruit is spicy, while the Fruit Tree block is generously fruity. Each component adds complexity when blended together, creating the Pinot Noir style for which Wantirna Estate is known.

"Reg Egan, who established this haven on the fringe of the Yarra Valley back in 1963, is pushing 94 and still drives a tractor and tends the vines a couple of days a week. He thought suburbia would swallow up the vineyard decades ago, and it would’ve, but for the Green Wedge policy of the 1970s. As the cacophony of modernity encroaches ever closer, Wantirna Estate remains its own Eden. So much has changed, but these old vines still eke out their exquisite quartet of wines.
 
“This place is ideal for making wine, because of the soil, because of the clay underneath, because, although it’s getting a bit hotter, it’s still relatively cool,” Reg told us last month as he cast an eye over the gnarled trunks and their incipient shoots. “It’s a lovely place to make wine.” Cellarhand

"A wine of ethereal beauty and balletic poise. Forest berries, sour cherry, rhubarb, a little rubbed herb and soft spice. Silky and graceful, a soft, satiny sensuousness in the mouth with gently grippy, fine tannins embroidering the edges." 96pts | Nick Ryan | The Australian 

"With Reg (now in his nineties) still keeping an eye on proceedings, Maryann produces wines that consistently illustrate the Yarra Valley’s greatest virtues. They are made in tiny quantities, then sold in a handful of restaurants, fine wine retailers and on two vineyard open days, the first of which is, fortuitously, this weekend. They are as beautiful as they are important, and they show why Wantirna Estate is both the foundation stone and the guiding light for the Yarra Valley of today." Nick Ryan - The Australian