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This year’s Balnarring Pinot Grigio is drawn from the organically managed Hester vineyard and Campbell and Christine vineyard. Both sites lie less than three kilometres from the winery, where the fruit arrives within an hour of picking. The grapes are pressed as whole bunches with a low yield per tonne because Quealy only uses the most delicate portion of the cycle. The juice is left to settle overnight without sulphuring. In the morning, the wine is racked off its gross lees and left to begin spontaneous fermentation in stainless steel. After primary fermentation, malolactic conversion ensues before naturally stopping due to the winter temperatures. The wine is sulphured and bottled unfiltered.
Tom McCarthy calls the 2023 season a "rinse-and-repeat of 2022". Once again, poor flowering dramatically reduced eventual crops. The wet spring was followed by a stable ripening season, which allowed the fruit to develop steadily, with minimal disease pressure. This resulted in exceptional fruit with excellent flavour intensity—perhaps even dialled up from 2022—and with acute varietal distinctions.
This is wonderfully perfumed, with white flowers, nashi pear, citrus and a twist of maritime freshness allied to a generous yet lip-smacking palate, rippling with mineral tension and a lick of salinity at the finish. Intense, fresh and crammed with flavour, there’s a whole lot of wine in the glass here.