Gentle Folk Little Creek Pinot Noir 2024

In their words - Little Creek sits in its own valley just over the hill from Monomeith - but it is its own beast. The vine density is double and the soil much more rocky that that of its neighbours. This usually shows through in the wine having more fruit density, with much darker and earthier characters. This is true again in 2024 where the near perfect growing season, although low yielding, has grown a wine that is true to Little Creek, yet with a great purity that seems to be common in the vintage

Vinification: The fruit was fully de stemmed before being fermented in open top vats for two weeks with twice daily pump overs. The fermentation lasted for two weeks before being pressed to French oak barrels, 10% new, for 10 months. After this, the wine was racked to tank for three months before being bottled unfined and unfiltered during its second winter.

Critics thoughts -  Well, here’s a nice thing. I bought six bottles from Gentle Folk via their website, and I do that sort of thing fairly regularly, I don’t ask for discounts, but with Gentle Folk, they chucked in another six bottles, including a mix I didn’t order, and also some that have not yet been reviewed as yet. So that’s nice. They are good people, and I only mention this for purposes of transparency. This is from Norton Summit, a vineyard planted between 1987 and 1990, sitting at 500 M above sea level.

Dark cherry, plum, poached strawberry, quite a bit of spice and Sarawak black pepper perfume, with a Braulio-like amaro edge, orange zest and school fete toffee sweetness. It’s medium-bodied, a plum and cherry richness, a graphite-like grip to tannin, quite dark and nutty, but entirely wholesome in its delivery of savoury, yet fruit sweet Pinot Noir, Quite a wine. Very good.  94 points Gary Walsh The Wine Front