Awards and Accolades

Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front
"You’d have to say this is a pretty good shot at affordable pinot noir, out of a premium wine region. It’s dry, spicy and varietal; tassels of tannin give a sense of structural integrity; and while it’s not a ‘big’ pinot by any stretch, it avoids any suggestion of wimpiness. I’m sure it was made to ‘drink now’ but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a better wine again in 2, or even 3, years; it’s so dry and stringy, you just get that sense. Hard wine to score in many ways; reckon it’s bronze medal standard, 88-90-ish."

From the Winery

Inspired by the land of freedom and the summer of Love, the California Dreamin’ wines are big, bold and focussed on providing maximum flavour and drinking pleasure to a wide range of wine lovers.

A very low yielding, dry and quite warm vintage resulted in one of the earliest vintages on record. On the positive whilst there was considerable and consistent warmth there were no really hot spikes and rain in late January really revitalised the vines. A riper and more expressive Yarra vintage.

Partially machine and hand harvested before de-stemming and fermentation in two tonne open fermenters with ten percent whole bunch and twice daily hand plunging. All components blended post fermentation before two thirds were matured in stainless steel and one third was matured in French (25% new Kairos and Taransaud) for six months before bottle with minimal fining, filtration and suphur addition.

Sourced from a combination of upper and lower Yarra Vineyards, primarily in the Coldstream sub-region, plus a parcel from Bendigo that added a depth of ripe fruit to the mid palate.

95% Pinot Noir, 5% Shiraz