Giant Steps Bastard Hill Vineyard Yarra Valley Pinot Noir 2024
£47.45
The wine
Bright crimson in colour. On the nose, there are exotic red fruit aromas of strawberry and cherry pip with lavender and bergamot notes, brown spice, sour cherries and blood orange. Poised and elegant, this wine spreads harmoniously across the palate, with fine acidity softened by silky tannins on the finish.
Bastard Hill sits in Gladysdale in the upper Yarra Valley, thirty-one hectares of which thirteen are planted, to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir alone. The name is a growers' joke about the steepness of the slope. The fruit was picked in two parcels, chilled overnight and fully destemmed into small seasoned French oak vats, each clone kept apart. After a four-day cold soak the must spent ten to fourteen days on skins with gentle gravity-driven mixing, then ten months in French oak after malolactic.
The producer
Giant Steps
View all Giant Steps winesGiant Steps is one of Australia's leading estates for Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, based in the cool Yarra Valley of Victoria. Founded by Phil Sexton, it has become a benchmark for single-vineyard wines of purity and precision. The wines rank among the country's finest.
The vineyards lie across the Yarra Valley's varied soils and altitudes, each site vinified separately to capture its character. Cool nights and careful, low-intervention winemaking give freshness and detail. Giant Steps is a champion of Yarra terroir.
The range runs from the fresh, regional Yarra Valley Chardonnay and Pinot Noir to the acclaimed single-vineyard bottlings from Sexton and Applejack. Each is pure, mineral and beautifully balanced. They show the Yarra at its most refined.
Giant Steps wines combine cool-climate freshness with real depth and craft. They are elegant, age-worthy and consistently outstanding. Among the best of modern Australia.
