2024 Kooyong Ferrous Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula

Medium to full ruby red, bright in the glass. Red cherry, river stone, and charcuterie aromatics. The fruit is more centred, more black cherry, and develops on the palate with a silkiness that is instantly appealing. It’s slippery and flowing, but with enough acidity and tannin to keep focus and drive as it glides incredibly long. With time, more details emerge: cured meat, hints of fresh rosemary, and a truffle undergrowth detail that suggests a similar food match will really see it sing. Drink to 2036.

95 points Stuart Knox for The Real Review, August 2026

My favourite of the three Kooyong Single Block 2024 Pinots. Smells of stones. Of summer rain. Velvet and hibiscus. Cello and cherry. Rose petals and rust. The intensely contained hum of energy feels as if the wine is in molecular vibration, as if the glass might start to move across the table. The sweetness is the full untrammelled joy of the dawn chorus. The tannins are the dew-damp lichen-etched stepping stones through a rose garden. It stole my heart.

17.5/20 points Tamlyn Currin for Jancis Robinson, May 2026

Another difficult cool/wet vintage, and yet there’s a certain charm to the pinots as they are not weighty. Ferrous with stewed rhubarb, macerated red cherries, raspberry leaf, ironstone and herbs, with a touch of chinotto. It’s refreshing thanks to the acidity, with supple, fine tannins building up the palate. Drink to 2034.

93 points Jane Faulkner for Halliday Wine Companion, August 2026

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 Ferrous is one of six distinct single blocks vinified separately. This block covers just 0.8ha of Kooyong’s 27-year-old Pinot Noir plantings in a part of the vineyard that features soils heavy in ironstone pebbles.

The hand-harvested fruit was destemmed to a concrete vat with a 10% whole bunch inclusion for fermentation with indigenous yeasts. Gently pumped over and plunged over sixteen days, the wine was pressed, racked and matured for twelve 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.