2024 Garagiste Terre de Feu Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula

A small parcel of fruit, always 100% whole bunches, makes its mark with Terre de Feu – it’s a style Barnaby Flanders has mastered. It’s distinctive and, if you’re wanting a pinot with purity of fruit, drink one of the single-vineyard wines he makes. The whole bunches impart a strongly fragrant, earthy, sappy, twiggy and smoky character. It’s deep, complex and rich with dark cherries, warm tar, licorice, chinotto and wet iron. Fuller bodied, densely packed with tannins, cedary smoky oak and spices, yet plenty of refreshing acidity lifts and extends the finish. A wine for food and better with some mellow time in bottle.

95 points Jane Faulkner winecompanion.com.au

Garagiste Terre de Feu Pinot Noir from the Mornington Peninsula is a finely etched and aromatic cool-climate red that captures the precision and site expression winemaker Barnaby Flanders is known for. Garagiste has built a strong reputation for small-batch, vineyard-focused wines, and Terre de Feu is one of its most distinctive bottlings, sourced from a single site in the Flinders subregion at the southern tip of the Peninsula.

Flinders is the coolest part of Mornington, strongly influenced by the surrounding Bass Strait. The combination of maritime breezes, long ripening periods and volcanic clay soils produces Pinot Noir with lifted aromatics, fine tannins and bright natural acidity. Barnaby Flanders works with a light touch in the winery — fruit is handpicked, fermented with indigenous yeasts, and typically includes a portion of whole bunches to bring savoury spice and structure. Maturation takes place in French oak, with only a small percentage of new barrels, ensuring oak plays a subtle supporting role.

In the glass, Terre de Feu is pale garnet with perfumed aromas of red cherry, raspberry, wild strawberry, rose petal and gentle whole-bunch spice, underpinned by earthy notes and a flicker of mineral salinity. The palate is light to medium-bodied, silky and pure, with a core of fresh red fruits, fine-grained tannins and a lingering, savoury finish.

This is a Pinot Noir that works beautifully with duck confit, roast quail with pomegranate glaze, or a wild mushroom and thyme risotto. It can be enjoyed now for its freshness and perfume, but will develop more earthy complexity over the next 5 to 7 years.