2025 Bannockburn De La Terre Pinot Noir, Geelong

There's real harmony, with supple aromas of red fruit, citrus peel, earth, dried flowers, herbs and spices. The palate is textural and seamless, showing grace and poise, with fine tannins and bright acidity. Some whole-cluster inclusion. An excellent bottling with early drinking appeal, but with many years ahead in the bottle. World-class pinot. Drink or hold.

96 points Ryan Montgomery for James Suckling, September 2026

De La Terre [of the earth], is a certified organic 0.7-hectare block adjacent to Serre. It was densely planted in 2007 to Pinot Noir clones 777 and 114 in two sections with variable exposition and orientation, both with dark clay soils over weathered basalt and limestone. It is a more exposed block within the Bannockburn vineyard, with the greater exposure to sun leading to earlier picking in most years.

The fruit for this wine was handpicked and fermented in open-top fermenters with a portion of whole cluster layered through the ferments. The wine spent thirteen days on skins before being pressed to French oak hogsheads of which 30% were new. Malolactic conversion occurred naturally and the wine remained untouched on lees, through its ten-month maturation.

About this producer

Stuart Hooper planted the first vines at Bannockburn in 1974 with a clear ambition: to produce wines that could stand alongside the great estates of Burgundy. Fifty years on, the estate has made good on that ambition. The 26 blocks of estate vines, some of the oldest in the Geelong region, include the Serré vineyard planted in 1984. Farming across the estate is organic, yields are tightly restricted, and the Moorabool Valley’s low-fertility soils and continental climate do the rest. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are the foundation, but the range extends further, and every wine is made from estate fruit alone.