Describe the best smelling Pinot Noir. Describe a wine that reminds you of perfection.

It's too hard. It's a task that no one can achieve. I feel silly saying this, because if I do try to write it, Nick will call me on the phone and tell me I'm bullshitting.

However, the task needs to be fulfilled. Text needs to be assigned to a liquid that creates emotion.

This wine smells like Pinot Noir that has stopped me in my tracks. It smells like wine that I recall when people ask me, how good can wine be, or is there a difference between cheap wine and expensive wine. It smells like wine that I dream about, it smells like wine that made me fall in love with wine.

Whatever I write is irrelevant, because it's my experience, my mouth, my tongue, my budget.

Flowers, spices, oak, sunshine, love, hardwork, perfume, loss and years of dedication. It smells like the cellar during harvest and the mud on your boots during pruning. It's a warm kitchen with friends and family and duck roasting in an oven. I can write a standard note about petals and acid and texture, but it doesn't really tell you what it feels like to drink it.

By Farr Sangreal Pinot Noir

The Sangreal vineyard was planted in 1994, making it our oldest vineyard. It lies on a north-facing slope and the soil composition is bluestone and overlaying limestone, with red ironstone colouring the surface. This is unlike our other vineyards, which are mostly black volcanic soil with heavy amounts of limestone on the surface. The vine rows run north-south, receiving full sun exposure throughout the day, resulting in more perfumed, prettier wines. This is always the first vineyard to be harvested. The clones used in Sangreal are 114 and 115, which we believe have mutated over time to become the ‘Sangreal clone’, now within its own microclimate.

Vinification

Sangreal is consistently made with 70 per cent whole bunch and aged in 70 percent new oak. It is fermented in a five-tonne oak barrel with an open-top fermenter, and cold soaked for four days before a natural fermentation of seven to nine days. Once the cap falls, the tank is pressed. The wine is racked only once after malolactic fermentation, then sulphured and bottled, the entire process taking a total of 18 months. The wine is unfined and unfiltered in order to retain its natural flavour and bouquet. Sangreal is the most seamless and perfumed of the three single-vineyard pinots.

Tasting Notes

Each year the same descriptive notes come to mind for this wine: seductive, perfumed, seamless balance and moreish. It is a site that wavers very little in more difficult vintages and excels in the great ones—this is the backbone of By Farr wines. The alluring characters of this vineyard, combined with red fruits, whole bunch, acidity and oak, have produced a beautifully interwoven expression of site and vintage. That’s what it’s all about.

Vintage 2024 Harvest Notes from Nick

The feeling of the season leading up to the 2024 vintage, was one of hope. The property was poised for a healthy and vigorous growing season, yet rainfall is required for this to be achieved ! Some winter rains certainly helped but overall the Spring rains didn’t really eventuate as it had during the previous four years seasons. The resilience of the vineyards was evident though, with average cropping levels seemingly achievable with the assistance of some timely showers and irrigation to maintain the canopy through some warmer weather during February.

The season was certainly mild throughout but the warmer weather was only towards our first picking date of

27th Feb. We tested the waters and decided after two days of picking that the fruit was capable of achieving greater flavour. We resumed picking on the 4th March and never looked back. The Irrewarra

vineyard was started on the 19th March followed wonderfully by the Gamayand Shiraz. As we felt another vintage was coming to a close quite swiftly the Nebbiolo once again didn’t play ball. By mid April it was time to finish, so the Nebbiolo was picked and stalling at 12 Beaume. It was destined for Rose for another year.

The whites fermented extremely slowly but perhaps that has been an important factor in the tension that the wines have maintained, considering the warm finish to the season. Classic “Farr” – Calm power.

As for the reds, they certainly remind me of the 2016 vintage. Wines that where capable of being pushed a little harder than the previous 4 vintages. The end result yet still in barrel, have great concentration, character and poise becoming yet it is the smallest vintage since 2002.