2024 Moorilla Praxis Pinot Noir, Tamar Valley

Attractive brambly dark cherry and berry fruits here. There's a little reductive youthful edge to this meaty and modern pinot. The palate's full of lively succulent juicy raspberry and red cherry flavor, acidity adds life to silky tannins; smooth and even, spiced strawberry finish. Great value. Drink now.

93 points James Suckling 

The fruit for this wine is grown in the St Matthias vineyard, a northeast facing slope with rocky soils on a clay and loam base. Four different clones of Pinot noir, harvested and vinified separately over the course of the season, contributed to the final blend (777, MV6, 114 and 115). The Moorilla team has been tweaking the patches of fruit at St Matthias for years, looking for a softer and silkier tannin with less time in oak coupled with a more fruit forward style but with some wild yeast complexity. The push to try to harvest fruit slightly lower in ripeness to try to avoid higher alcohol content.

The 2024 season enjoyed above average temperatures but without prolonged periods of heat, and cool to cold nighttime temperatures. The harvest started about normal time in the first week of March but was finished in just three weeks.

Each parcel received different treatments, but all had a four-day cold soak and 14 days on skins (25-30% had whole berries). All were fermented in open top fermenters, and roughly 45% with ambient yeasts. The wine spent seven months in medium plus toasted 500L barrels of mixed origin (16% new). Bottled December 2024.

Drink within 2-3 years of release.