Little Yering Pinot Noir

Yering Station's home estate traces to 1838, yet every vine standing today dates from a 1988 replanting — meaning Little Yering is built entirely on young-vine fruit from volcanic loam slopes and clay-loam soils across five sites in Yarra Glen and Coldstream, not on the romance of age. Wild yeast fermentation and hand-plunging during primary fermentation define the house method at every tier: gentle tannin extraction without mechanical intervention, preserving the Yarra Valley's cool-climate acidity and site-driven minerality rather than engineering weight. French oak is used with deliberate restraint — new oak percentages kept low across the portfolio — so the volcanic loam's characteristic red-fruit tension reads clearly in the glass. What makes Little Yering structurally unusual is the annual blind allocation tasting: all parcels, including those that will become this wine, are assessed without identity before tier assignment, meaning no block is pre-destined for the entry label — it earns its place by merit each vintage. The result is a Pinot Noir sealed under screwcap (a policy held for over 20 years) that prioritises phenolic ripeness over sugar ripeness, landing at approximately 13.5% ABV with the kind of taut, cool-climate line that warmer Australian regions structurally cannot replicate.