Description
Maker: In 1969, Dr Bailey Carrodus re-established winemaking in Yarra Valley in Victoria, picking up from where it left in mid-1800s to the 1920s.
He completed degrees in horticulture and winemaking and studied in France, Spain, Portugal, and Italy.
Dr Carrodus found a vineyard site in the Yarra Valley and produced wine in the style he loved.
After his passing, the vineyard was sold to two businessmen who carried on his legacy and pathed the way to becoming one of the region’s oldest and most respected wineries.
From 2013 the coveted role of winemaker and general manager went to Sarah Crowe who was named James Halliday’s 2017 Winemaker of the Year.
Sarah makes elegant, acclaimed wines, but humbly credits the vineyard as the true hero.
Vineyard: At Yarra Yering, all fruit is hand-picked in the cool of the morning into 10kg picking buckets and delivered directly to the winery.
The fruit is then sorted and either destemmed or crushed into traditional tea chest 0.5-tonne open-fermenters.
Depending on the variety, stalks may be added back during the fermentation stage in baskets for easy removal when there is just enough stalk tannin present.
The 70 acres of vines at Yarra Yering are grown without irrigation on a northerly slope at the foot of the Warramate hills.
The vines benefit from good drainage, all-day exposure to the sun, and enough elevation from the valley floor to avoid spring frosts.
This produces wines that are inherently balanced, precise, and elegant.
The low yield of 1-2 tons per acre results in fruit with great intensity and concentration of flavour, as well as an abundance of natural acidity.
Wine style/cuvee: Yarra Yering’s Block No.
1 was the site of the first plantings, which included Cabernet vines and Malbec in 1969.
Merlot vines were also interplanted with the Cabernet, and subsequent plantings of Petit Verdot were made in 1990 on newly acquired neighbouring land.
All fruit is hand-harvested and sorted, with only the best berries used in the wine.
The Cabernet fruit is individually berry sorted before being crushed to build structure through fermentation.
Merlot, Malbec, and Petit Verdot are whole berry ferments for fragrance and palate flesh.
All are fermented in half-tonne fermenters and hand plunged twice daily, with one third of the Cabernet spending extended time on skins for complexity and to build the savoury edge.
The components are kept separate in French oak barrels, 40% new, until being blended just before bottling after 15 months of barrel maturation.
Upon bottling, the wine is shy and requires bottle maturation to unfurl.
Yarra Yering’s Dry Red Wine No.
1 2021 is a blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 11% Malbec, 5% Petit Verdot.
It is complex yet approachable, always exciting to watch evolve over time.
With suitable cellaring conditions, it will evolve for 20+ years.
Tasting: Nose – Rustic, Herbal, Cassis Black berry fruits and a rustic iodine feel compliment some bay leaf adding a background herbal lift.
Palate – Spice rack, Cedar, Concentrated Dark Fruits Elegantly weighted, plenty of drive and intensity.
Layers of fruit and refreshing acidity.
Brown spices and a hint of oak; flavour and tannin.
Finish – Balanced, Fine, Detailed Balanced and harmonious.
Ripe chewy tannins.
At once emphatically fragrant and lighter than air and yet deeper, more concentrated, more enduring and more structured.
No Australian wine of modern era exemplifies this profound juxtaposition more emphatically than Yarra Yering Dry Red Wine No.1 2021.
– Tyson Stelzer, 100 Points.
Powerful and balanced with lots of layers.
Ripe, chewy tannins course through the wine’s concentrated fruit, yet the overall impression is one of balance and harmony.
A serious and complete cabernet.
– Philip Rich, Halliday Wine Companion, 98 Points.
Deep, bright purple-red colour with a bouquet of cassis, mulberry, blackberry and some hints of peat-moss, nori and dried herbs.
In the mouth, it’s finely tuned and tensioned, elegantly weighted and structured with intensity and drive, the tannins fine grained and perfectly matched to the flavour.
Long, long carry.
It drinks superbly now but leave it alone for a few years and watch it grow and build more detail.
Very stylish wine.
– Huon Hooke, The Real Review, 98 Points.
The Finer Details Style – Red Wine Varietal – 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 11% Malbec, 5% Petit Verdot Country – Australia Region – Yarra Valley, Victoria Vintage – 2021 Bottle Size – 750ml ABV – 13.5%
