Yabby Lake Vineyard was established by the Kirby family in 1998, in Tuerong, which is located in the northern part of the peninsula. Over the past decade, the vineyard has built a reputation for single vineyard chardonnay and pinot noir of great purity and character. Led by winemaker Tom Carson, our philosophy is to craft wines that speak of our site and the season in which they were grown. It’s the attention and care in the vineyard that is most critical to allowing this expression.
The mild and even ripening conditions meant patience was essential in 2022, to ensure thorough and complete ripening of the fruit. Harvest was in March and over a 10 day period for pinot noir. The fruit was handpicked from blocks 1, 2, 3 & 5 – with each parcel handled separately in the winery. These pinot noir blocks are planted on light sandy clay loam, sandy loam deep soils. Each separate parcel was hand sorted and carefully de-stemmed, the whole berries were then transferred to oak fermentation vats for natural fermentation. A small portion of whole bunches were used in 2022. Once fermentation was complete the wines were transferred to French oak 500L barrels for maturation, 20% of which were new. The wines were left undisturbed until bottling in February 2023. The pinot noir clones in this wine are MV6, G5V15, D4V2.
