2018 Yarra Yering Sparkling Cuvée, Yarra Valley

60/40% pinot meunier/chardonnay. Six years on lees. 3g/L RS. A new blend for Yarra Yering, and a very good one at that. Bright green gold. Subtle and complex aromas of freshly baked biscuit, lemon verbena and summer flowers. Flows evenly across the palate, finishing dry, saline and long. A beautifully put-together wine from go to whoa. Drink now and over the next four to six years. Drink to 2032.

97 points Special Value Philip Rich for Halliday Wine Companion, March 2026

Bright light to mid yellow with a vigorous cordon of bubbles. Shaved almond and Christmas cake icing on the nose. Almost marzipan. More bready as it rested in the glass. The wine is full and fluffy textured in the mouth with intense citrusy flavours and lovely refreshing dryness assisted by vibrant acidity. Refinement, focused intensity, superior line and length. Young for its age, too. This is a smashing champagne-style bubbly. And despite the supposedly inert crown seal, it's developed lovely baguette crust breadiness. Drink to 2033.

93 points Huon Hooke for The Real Review, June 2026

Yarra Yering is an iconic, dry-grown vineyard in Victoria’s Yarra Valley established in 1969 by Sydney-born Dr Bailey Carrodus. The well-draining north facing site in Gruyere currently has just over 36 hectares of vines. Yarra local Andrew Gorge has looked after these since 2012, with Brokenwood alumna Sarah Crowe joining as his counterpart at the winery a year later.

This wine is a blend of Pinot Meunier planted in 1990 in the silty clay loams of Yarra Yering’s Underhill block, and Chardonnay clone 124 planted in 2013. The hand harvested grapes were whole bunch pressed, and the lightly clarified juice transferred to older oak barrels for fermentation and an eight-month maturation. Once bottled and tiraged, the wine rested on lees for 80 months prior to disgorgement.

Most sparkling makers use crown seal closures during the secondary fermentation, but Yarra Yering also chooses to re-seal the wine after disgorgement of lees under this closure instead of the more commonly encountered cork closure. In many ways, this is simply the equivalent of sealing a still wine with a screwcap, and guarantees the wine reaches your glass as the winemaker intended.