2023 Provenance Regional Pinot Noir, Geelong

From the Darriwill vineyard, planted in the Moorabool Valley in '98. A bright ruby red. Like last year's trio of Provenance's regional and single-vineyard pinots, this is both the most backward and structured of the three. They're all excellent and, if you can, it's really worth the time and effort to taste and compare them. This has dark fruits and more spice than floral notes while the palate is concentrated, structured, balanced and long. Built to go the distance. Drink to 2035.

96 points Philip Rich for Halliday Wine Companion, July 2025

Provenance was established in the mid-1990s around a simple idea of showcasing cool-climate vineyard sites across western Victoria. Owner and winemaker Sam Vogel works mostly with select vineyards across Henty, Ballarat and Geelong. 

The Darriwill vineyard in Geelong’s Moorabool Valley has been an important fruit source for Provenance Wines for nearly twenty years. The site was known internationally in the 1860s as a home of high-quality grapes but the original plantings unfortunately succumbed to phylloxera and it wasn’t until the early 1990s that it was reborn, planted in almost the exact same location. The site has a cool south-easterly aspect that falls down to Sutherland’s Creek, with a mix of clay and loam over limestone subsoils.

The fruit tends to be in the darker spectrum of Pinot, with the diverse clonal selection resulting in complex flavours that originate in the vineyard rather than from the winemaking.