2023 Bass Phillip Depuis Pinot Noir
2023 Bass Phillip Depuis Pinot Noir

2023 Bass Phillip Depuis Pinot Noir

96 pts
Bass Phillip |Gippsland |Pinot Noir
A bold first for Bass Phillip – 100% whole-bunch Pinot from old vines that shows where the new team is taking this legendary estate.
Price:
$495.00
Stock:
In stock, ready to ship, only 1 unit left
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Description

Depuis is a new chapter for Bass Phillip and a bit of a statement from the team now led by Jean-Marie Fourrier and winemaker Adam Francis. It’s the first wine in the estate’s long history to be made entirely with whole-bunch fermentation – something they’d never done before, but it felt right to try.

The fruit comes off 45-year-old vines on the original Leongatha South vineyard, Bass Phillip’s home block. 2023 was a tricky but rewarding season – a cool, wet spring followed by a long, dry finish that let the fruit and stems ripen together. The result is fruit with plenty of flavour and natural balance, perfect for this kind of winemaking.

The wine is bright and complex: sweet red fruit, a little smoke, aniseed and fine tannins that give structure without weight. It feels concentrated but still lively, with that unmistakable South Gippsland freshness. Depuis 23 shows the estate’s direction under its new custodians – curious, confident and still obsessed with making great Pinot.

96 points
"A high-impact wine of formidable structure and concentration."
- Huon Hooke (The Real Review)

Huon Hooke

Huon Hooke

The Real Review 96 Points

Deep-ish colour with a tinge of purple in the rim, the bouquet quite vegetal/stemmy, with floral, minty nuances, suggesting a substantial portion of whole bunches were in the ferment. An attractive perfume, albeit on the herbal side of the ledger. The wine is full bodied and loaded with drying tannins that coat the entire lining of the mouth. A high-impact wine of formidable structure and concentration. It will be fascinating to see how it develops with some age.

Jane Faulkner

Jane Faulkner

Halliday Wine Companion 96 Points

Vigneron Jean-Marie Fourrier destems pinot at his Burgundian domaine and at Bass Phillip, in order to preserve flavour and freshness. Not surprising given he was a protégé of the late, great Henri Jayer, who did the same. So, here it is – Depuis 23, which means 'since' in French (as in this style started in ‘23). Fermented with 100% whole bunches and aged in French oak, 50% new, for 14 months. Given all that, weaker sites would produce something weedy and astringent. Not this. Sure, it’s stemmy with bitter herbs, but it’s also superbly integrated because at its heart is excellent fruit, all sweet and tangy. A little smokiness comes through, aniseed, almost pastis-like, umami/Vegemite and oak spices with raw silk tannins sashaying across the fuller-bodied palate. There’s a density and richness but it’s not weighty. Whole-bunch junkies will be stoked.

Price Bracket $101 and Above
Type Red
Body Full Bodied
Variety Pinot Noir
Country Australia
Region Gippsland
Australian State VIC
Reviewed By Halliday Wine Companion
The Real Review
Critic Score 96
Alcohol 14%
Size 750ml
Vintage 2023
Closure Cork

Bass Phillip

Phillip Jones founded Bass Phillip back in 1979 and in the intervening years built a deserved reputation as one of Australia's best producers of Pinot Noir. For decades Jones farmed his Gippsland plot with adherence to organic and biodynamic farming, the meticulous attention to detail in the vineyard yielding some of Australia’s truly world class wines.

So, it was only fitting that one of France's greatest Pinot Noir producers, Jean-Marie Fourrier, should take on the winemaking mantle as Phillip eased into retirement.

These are wines of power, personality and persistence, and need a place in every true collector's cellar. Bass Phillip is arguably some of Australia's most important benchmarks for Pinot Noir and this new chapter of their story is going to be very exciting to watch unfold.

Biodynamic icon of South Gippsland Bass Phillip

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