YARRA VALLEY VINTAGE GUIDE
Most recent vintage first. Click a year to see what we have in stock.
2024 - A cool, mild season with a dry, gentle autumn gave fragrant, precise Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with lovely natural acidity. Early releases look very good; a vintage for the cool-climate purist.
2023 - A cool, wet, late year — a La Niña season — with real disease pressure; yields were down and sorting mattered. The best wines are light, fresh and perfumed; the rest are lean. Choose by producer.
2022 - A cool, rainy spring and a mild summer produced elegant, moderate-alcohol wines with bright acidity — classic cool Yarra. Very good from the leading estates; drink over the next several years.
2021 - A near-ideal season: a mild summer, no heat spikes, a dry harvest. The Pinots are fragrant and finely structured, the Chardonnays taut and long. One of the best recent Yarra vintages; buy.
2020 - Bushfire smoke in January forced many producers to drop fruit or skip wines altogether; yields were tiny. What was made is sound but scarce. A vintage to approach carefully.
2019 - A hot, dry summer with heat events gave ripe, forward, fuller-bodied wines than usual — soft Pinot, generous Chardonnay. Drink early.
2018 - A warm, even season with a dry harvest produced ripe, generous, well-balanced wines — rounded Pinot Noir and rich Chardonnay. Very good; drinking well now.
2017 - A cool, long, late season — the coolest in years — gave aromatic, elegant, finely structured Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with excellent acidity. A superb vintage for the cellar.
2016 - - A dry winter and spring, including a scorching October, set the pace for another very early harvest. Timely rains in January kept the heat from taking too much of a toll, as yields were up and quality is very solid across the board. Pinot Noir figures to be the star of the 2016 vintage in Yarra Valley.
2015 - A great vintage with quite forward wines with great purity of fruit. Pinot and vhardonnay from Yarra Valley is especially good. One to load up on for sure.
2014 - Tricky is how 2014 is described by most. Problematic storms during flowering reduced yields and similar storms during vintage meant that growers had to be very hands on and selective to preserve/pick good fruit. Again this is a vintage where the best of the best produced some great wines but had to employ all their skills to do so!
2013 - Hearty wines, with good fruit and concentration. Riper fruit characters than the past several vintages, great early drinking wines that are forward and expressive.
2012 - A great vintage after avery tough one. Bigger wines with power and concentration. A warm, but not hot season. Balanced wines with power and length.
2011 - Very cool, wet and challenging. Quite savory herbal reds, some exceptional whites picked early with high acidity and laser like focus, especially good Yarra Chardonnay in a more linear style.
2010 - A mild, even season after years of drought gave balanced, elegant, fragrant wines — the best Yarra vintage of the decade. The top Pinots have aged beautifully.
2009 - Black Saturday bushfires in February and a heatwave; smoke taint affected many wines and the crop was small. A vintage to avoid for the most part.
2008 - Heat in March compressed the harvest and gave ripe, forward wines; fine from the early-picked sites. Drink up.
2007 - Frost, drought and a hot, early vintage cut yields and produced ripe, uneven wines. Mostly past their best.
2006 - A warm, dry year with an early harvest gave ripe, generous, fruit-forward wines. Mature; drink.
2005 - A mild, even season produced balanced, elegant, classic Yarra wines — very good Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that aged well.
2004 - A cool season with a long, mild ripening period gave fragrant, structured, elegant wines. Excellent; the best are still lovely.
2003 - A hot, dry summer produced ripe, forward wines that matured early. Drink up.
2002 - A cool, late year with low yields gave intense, concentrated, finely structured wines — one of the best cool vintages. Mature now.
2001 - A warm season produced ripe, generous, approachable wines. Fully mature; drink.
2000 - A cool, wet, difficult year gave light, variable wines. Past their best.