2025 Bannockburn Olive Tree Hill Pinot Noir, Geelong

Lovely aromas of red fruit, dried flowers, blood oranges, earth and spices. The palate is taut and refined, with good tension, liveliness, fine-grained yet firm tannins, bright acidity and a long, minerally finish with old-vine character. Absolutely delicious now and for many years to come. Drink or hold.

97 points Ryan Montgomery for James Suckling, September 2026

The MV6 clone old vine Pinot Noirs in the Olive Tree Hill block were planted in 1976, with the vines facing north on a lightly terraced slope with rows running from east to west.

The fruit for this wine was handpicked and fermented in open-top fermenters with some whole cluster layered throughout the ferments. The wine spent ten days on skins before it was pressed to French oak hogsheads of which 40% was 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.