Hoddles Creek 1er Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2024

The Pinot Noir for this wine comes from our Top Paddock Vineyard. There are 28 rows of pinot planted in this block, which is West facing and sloping to the South. The fact that it slopes down to the South is really important as it enables us to include about 25% whole clusters to the fermentation. South facing blocks tend to be a bit cooler, and ripening takes a little longer hence the stalks have a chance to regain ripeness without imparting any green flavours on the wine.

The 2024 season was far from the disaster of crop levels like we saw in 2020. Most blocks returned to historical yields. This was in part due to favourable flowering but also to the work we have put into rejuvenating our soils. A few years ago, I started running some cattle through the property again. With cattle, pasture management is essential to raising healthy cattle. Time and effort needs to be put to make sure the soil is suitable to grow good pasture. This made me reflect on what we are actually doing to the soils at Hoddles. Over the years we have been busy in the vineyards and somewhat neglected the most important thing. The soil the vines grow in. So now, we have embarked on a program to ensure our soils are healthy and are the best conduit possible to grow good grapes. I think we are starting to see the results in the wines.