2021 Kooyong Meres Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula

Fruit sourced for Meres is from some of the most exposed of all Kooyong’s Pinot Noir plantings. The vines are heading out of their youth and are low in vigour, the soils are light on topsoil and heavy on clay subsoil. On paper, it doesn’t sound THAT different. In the glass, it is THAT different – Meres is beautifully, arrestingly aromatic, pure in fruit intensity and fine. Fruit, picked on the earlier side of ripeness, is celebrated with a lifted bouquet of cherry, cranberry, plum and anise. Earthy, savoury notes revolve around a solid core of red berries on the palate with gentle sweet spice and an intriguing peppery finish. As it fans out across the mouth, feel those fine tannins, juicy acidity, enjoy the delicacy of it all which is sustained and vibrant to the end. Pure flavour-soaked appeal. Drink to 2030.

95 points Jeni Port for Wine Pilot, August 2023

A light crimson with copper edges. Hints of bramble and sous-bois, strawberry, a sluice of vanillin oak and dill, presumably from a dollop of whole bunch. A very pretty wine if not a prosaic one, feeling considerably lighter weighted than usual. All said, the finish is composed and attractive, with a drag of good length serviced by juicy acidity, maritime and salty. Drink or hold.

92 points James Suckling, January 2024

As with all the single-block wines, shyness of flavour is a theme, it’s the vintage and lots of poppy acidity. Certainly refreshing, almost delicate with its varietal inputs, lightly spiced and flavoured. While not typical of Meres, it’s lovely to drink anyway. Drink to 2031.

92 points Jane Faulkner for Halliday Wine Companion, August 2023

The lightly colored 2021 Pinot Noir Single Block Meres is fragrant and enticing with lifted watermelon and cranberry aromas. Silky and gently weighted, it shows admirable layers of red fruit flavors. Silky tannins drive a lingering finish. Drink to 2029.

91 points Angus Hughson for vinous, September 2023

Kooyong is a specialist Pinot Noir and Chardonnay producer based at Tuerong on the Mornington Peninsula, where the Gjergja family has farmed 40 hectares of estate vines since 1996.

The x is one of six distinct single blocks vinified separately. This block covers just 0.6ha of Kooyong’s now 27-year-old Pinot Noir plantings in an exposed part of the vineyard that features heavier clay soils that supress vine vigour and yields low quantities of highly perfumed fruit.

The hand-harvested fruit was destemmed to a combination concrete and stainless steel vats with a small inclusion of whole bunches for fermentation with indigenous yeasts. Gently pumped over and plunged over sixteen days, the wine was pressed, racked and matured for fourteen months in French oak barriques of which 20% were new. The wine was racked once more ahead of bottling which took place without fining or filtration.