96 Points, Dr Bill Ryan Best Pinot Noir Wine of Show Trophy -
2026 Royal Queensland Wine Awards

96 points - "From the Sexton vineyard in Gruyere planted in the late '90s. 100% destemmed, 22% new wood. More black fruits than red fruits, stewed rhubarb, a little earth and iodine, too. This follows through onto the darkly fruited, compact and firmly structured palate. The most closed of the four single-vineyard wines today but one that will reward at least a decade, or more, in your cellar." - Philip Rich (Halliday Wine Companion

96 points - "The Sexton vineyard was planted in 1997. It’s a north-facing, exposed site, at 200 metres above sea level.
There’s no escaping the seriousness of this wine. It’s cool, spicy and complex, but it has heft and power, and is structurally firm (to say the least). This wine is both keen with mineral and flooded with floral character, the latter embedded in the fruit rather than flying off as aromatics. Pomegranate, dark cherries, blood and bone, alpine herbs, red roses, smoked cream, pepper and peppercorn, the latter bound to those red rose notes. It’s serious in style and seriously good." - Campbell Mattinson (The Wine Front)

Vintage Notes
The 2025 season kicked off with a generous, wet winter that filled the soil profile with moisture. From there, spring arrived warm and dry. Shoots pushed early; we had fantastic spring conditions during flowering and fruit set. The dry season pushed growth and ripening along even though temperatures weren’t hot, in fact barely warmer than average, a pleasant surprise for the dryness of the season. Harvest came earlier than usual and moved quickly, a compressed vintage that asked a great deal of the team and rewarded the effort with fruit of exceptional quality, concentration and weight.

Vineyard Notes
Location: Gruyere Planted: 1997 Elevation: 130 - 210 metres Soil Type: Grey clay loam over granite / ironstone. Aspect: North facing slopes Size: 30 Hectares Located on the steep north-facing slopes of the Warramate Ranges, Sexton Vineyard sits in one of the most revered pockets of the Valley. Being well up on the range, topsoil is thin and root systems have established themselves in shallow gravelly loams above a tough, rocky clay base. Bunch yields set naturally low in this environment, resulting in intensely flavoured fruit with high skin to juice ratio. Sexton Pinot Noir responds beautifully to the site’s warmer conditions and generous sunlight, producing wines with plush fruit, confidence and power. The wines often show dark cherry, blood plum and blackberry, layered with savoury complexity and notes of bourbon, sweet spice and ripe summer cherries - like an Old Fashioned. On the palate, Sexton is textural and expansive, framed by dark, chewy tannins and a long, powerful finish.

Winemaking
Handpicked, fermented in a combination of small oak fermenters and stainless-steel open vats. All parcels were destemmed to whole berries and cold soaked for four days before wild fermentation. Matured in French oak – 22% new, 78% seasoned – for 10 months in 225L barriques, predominately Taransaud and Dargaud & Jaeglé. The wine matured in barrique and kept in contact with its lees before blending in January. Bottled by gravity. No fining. No filtration.

Peak Drinking / Cellaring Potential
Now - eight years