2024 Giant Steps Bastard Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir
2024 Giant Steps Bastard Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir

2024 Giant Steps Bastard Hill Vineyard Pinot Noir

96 pts NICK RYAN TOP 100
Giant Steps |Yarra Valley |Pinot Noir
One of the highest and steepest vineyards in the Yarra Valley, the Bastard Hill Pinot is a very limited release that won't be available for long.
Price:
$105.00
Stock:
In stock, ready to ship
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Description

96 points
"Tightly wound, this is driven as much by the wine's very bright acidity as its superfine tannins."
- Philip Rich (Halliday Wine Companion)

Bastard Hill lives up to its name - steep, wild, and hard-earned - but the results in 2024 are anything but brutish. This high-elevation site, planted by Ray Guerin in the 1980s and now handled with precision by Mel Chester and the Giant Steps team, continues to reveal its class.

After years of cool, low-yielding vintages, 2024 brought more typical Yarra conditions - consistent warmth, solid crops, and a fast, focused harvest. For Bastard Hill, it meant a more compact, perfumed expression of Pinot: layered and detailed, but with a core of presence that sets it apart.

Handpicked and destemmed, the wine was fermented in open oak vats, clone by clone, before spending 10 months in French oak (20% new). The result is lifted and aromatic with rosehip, blood orange, bergamot and framed by fine, savoury tannin.

Still young and tightly coiled, this is a site with altitude, attitude and serious potential. In 2024, Bastard Hill is one of the more limited of the Single Vineyard Pinots from Giant Steps.

96 points
"This is pinot noir of ethereality and perfume, transparency and fine detail; a wine of shapely dark fruit, balletic flow and intricately woven tannins."
- Nick Ryan (Top 100 Wines of 2025)

Campbell Mattinson

Campbell Mattinson

The Wine Front 97 Points

This is pretty as a picture. Blue and red berries, slips of spice, smoked cedar tucked in; it’s Pinot Noir in naked form, the bones clear but so too the flesh. This result is exquisite. It glides slowly through the start and then gradually, like a river through the rapids, increases its speed to the rush of an exaggeratedly long finish. This Pinot Noir is minerally, almost gravelly. It has flesh and perfume. It delves into secret herbs and spices territory. It’s a wine in perfect form. The tautness, the perfume, the flesh; everything is elite.

Philip Rich

Philip Rich

Halliday Wine Companion 96 Points

No whole bunches and only MV6 from a south-facing slope at 400m, which has worked well in this warm year. A touch closed, this didn't need too long to open up, revealing a complex array of aromas including pure red cherry, sarsaparilla and spices such as clove and cardamom. Tightly wound, this is driven as much by the wine's very bright acidity as its superfine tannins. Give this some air and drink now or watch it slowly unfurl over time.

Price Bracket $101 and Above
Type Red
Body Light Bodied
Variety Pinot Noir
Country Australia
Region Yarra Valley
Australian State VIC
Feature Women in Wine
High Score
Reviewed By Halliday Wine Companion
The Wine Front
Size 750ml
Vintage 2024
Closure Screw Cap

Giant Steps

Giant Steps is a premium Yarra Valley outfit founded by Phil Sexton and located in the township of Healesville. Beginning with the vision of original head winemaker Steve Flamsteed, Giant Steps developed an international reputation for producing some of Australia's finest examples of single vineyard Pinot Noir & Chardonnay.

In 2021 the exceptionally talented Melanie Chester joined the team as the new head of winemaking and viticulture, marking an exciting new chapter in this elite producer's story.

Every aspect of the Giant Steps process is geared towards making truly world-class wines from the vineyard to the final bottled wine. The focus is on what the Yarra does best - Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Shiraz/Syrah and Bordeaux-variety blends - and showcasing the unique terroirs of some of the region's finest vineyards.

Discover Giant Steps

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