2025 Bannockburn Serre Pinot Noir, Geelong

You could be fooled into thinking this is playful and light, but underneath is a serious wine waiting to unfold. Aromas of red fruit, dried flowers, citrus peel, spices and earthy complexity. The palate shows fine chalk, red fruit, spices and earth, with firm yet focused tannins and a long, refreshing finish. Old-vine character from plantings going back to 1984. A wine for today and for decades to come. Drink or hold.

97 points Ryan Montgomery for James Suckling, September 2026

The certified organic Serré vineyard was planted in 1984 to the MV6 clone of Pinot. It is thought to be the oldest high-density vineyard in Australia, its tight spacing and low trellising inspired by Stuart Hooper's love of the great wines of Bourgogne, with the north facing vines standing in a clay-based soils over basalt and limestone subsoils.

The handpicked fruit was fermented in open-top fermenters with a portion of whole cluster layered throughout. The wine spent twelve days on skins before it was pressed to French oak hogsheads of which 40% 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.