Description

One of Australia’s truly iconic producers. Those who love wine know and seek out Bindi’s pristine and pure Chardonnays and elegant and finely structured Pinots Noir. All wines are Estate grown at the beautiful Macedon vineyard. These wines fall into the ‘purchase on sight’ category.

The Block Five vineyard is about half of one hectare in size on a sheltered, north facing, and very quartz riddled site. It is a wonderful natural vineyard exposition. The wine is always darker in fruit expression and immediately more spicy and earthy that the Original Vineyard. It is less immediately perfumed and has more tannin and fruit power. The wines from this vineyard require more bottle ageing to develop the same suppleness and delicacy as the Original Vineyard but even in their youth these wines are more profound. The wine spends 15-17 months in French barrels of which about 35% are new. This wine is never oak driven but can certainly benefit from a higher percentage of new oak without being dominated by sappy, smoky oak elements. Production typically varies from 150-200 dozen per vintage.

Michael Dhillon says of 2013 “As is typical, this wine is restrained and gives up reluctantly its red and dark fruits and exotic spicy elements. With air the level of complexity becomes more apparent. The palate is fresh, firm and powerful with excellent richness around a long finish. Again, another five years will see increased texture and complexity develop and it will drink and improve for many years beyond that.”

Macedon – A wholly underrate region in Australia. With a handful of extremely passionate but miserably small producers it is not surprising that those who know don’t really share the knowledge. Outstanding Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and sparkling wine is made here with a few braving some other varietals too.

Pinot Noir – This is the most elusive grape. It is relatively early ripening and extremely sensitive to terroir. Its perfect place on earth is the Cote d’Or in Burgundy. So haunting are great red Burgundy’s charms that growers everywhere try to emulate them. Pinot Noir is not just a one trick pony, it can make great reds, rosé, sparkling and even sweet wines, whites on occasion and I’ve tasted a decent fortified Pinot Noir too.