2025 Kooyong Estate Pinot Noir, Mornington Peninsula

With fruit sourced from four celebrated estate blocks. A top vintage that highlights intrinsic quality. Brilliant purple-crimson hues. Composition is top notch, offering a wine with fleshy, all round appeal. Aromas of red earth, bush scents, leaves, rosehip, dried herbs and dark berries. Woven together in a lithe and supple tannins, the palate explores the strong Mornington Peninsula regional combination of autumnal leaf and herbs threaded across bright cherry-dark berry and plum flavours with hints of cocoa, red liquorice spice, cola and an earthy rhubarb light savouriness. Nicely judged all round.

95 points Jeni Port for Wine Pilot, June 2026

The Estate Pinot Noir is a combination of fruit from a number of blocks – Meres, Haven, Ferrous and Nord. A great example of the glories of Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir. Fermentation was in a mix of vessels, including large format oak vats, concrete tanks and open top stainless steel fermenters. The team included a portion of whole bunches. Fermentation took around sixteen days and the wine was then pressed into a mix of French oak barriques, of which 15% were new, puncheons. Maturation was for a year. A pale but gleaming crimson, there is a slight sappy, briary opening to the wine and we have aromas weaving through cherries, fresh herbs, smoked meats, a touch of leather, raspberries and cold tea. The wine is of medium length, finely balanced with juicy acidity, and finishes with satiny tannins. Fresh and with good direction throughout, enjoy this over the next six to eight years. Drink to 2034.

94 points Ken Gargett for Wine Pilot, June 2026

This Pinot Noir has velvet to its texture, feels and tastes varietal, and finishes well. It’s in a good place. The cherry-berry fruit comes tossed with herbs, the tannin is fine and has just enough assertion, and everything feels knitted and svelte. In fact I’d reckon that this is the best Kooyong Estate Pinot Noir that I’ve tasted in at least a few years, if not longer.

93+ points Campbell Mattinson for Wine Front, May 2026

Medium deep, bright red tinged with purple. The bouquet is shy, reticent and shows a touch of oak as well as darker cherry fruit. In the mouth it has grip and weight, if not great refinemen. A touch of smoked charcuterie, while the oak is still there on the finish. With air, more pinoty flavour comes up to balance the oak and tannin. A smart pinot—give it some air. Drink to 2034.

92 points Huon Hooke for The Real Review, June 2026

From a 40-ha estate vineyard planted in 1996 in Tuerong. North-facing, 100–120 m, on well-drained, sedimentary clay loams. Sustainable viticulture.
Bright cherry fruit that slides glides across the spectrum from sour to sweet, yellow to dark red. Acidity is sharp, precise and plenteous, but ripe and saturated, a bit like sucking on a blood orange. Rose buds, hibiscus, rose hips. Slim and slinky. The tannins are less actors, more sound designers, creating atmosphere and pace in the invisible surround. A wine that has so much clarity that I feel like I’m tasting it after a thunderstorm, when everything is on brightness steroids.

17/20 points Tamlyn Currin for Jancis Robinson, May 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.

This Pinot is an estate blend from the Meres, Haven, Ferrous and Nord blocks. From the near-perfect 2025 vintage, the fruit was fermented in a combination of large-format oak vats, concrete tanks and open-top stainless steel fermenters with an inclusion of whole bunches. Fermentation commenced spontaneously with endemic yeasts and lasted 16–18 days after which the parcels were pressed into a combination of French oak barriques and puncheons, with 15% of the former new for the season. Matured for twelve months, the wine was only racked prior to bottling which took place without fining and with minimal filtration.