Coming Soon - 2024 Stargazer Pinot Noir

Founded by winemaker Samantha Connew, Stargazer has become one of Tasmania's most compelling small producers, crafting wines of precision and quiet intensity from the Coal River and Derwent Valleys. Whether Riesling, Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, each release reflects a meticulous, hands-off approach and a focus on texture, energy and site expression. For many, Stargazer marks the sweet spot between refinement and individuality in modern Tasmanian wine.

The 2023 Pinot Noir comes exclusively from Stargazer's own vineyards in the Tea Tree sub-region of the Coal River Valley, where two separate parcels were planted in 2002 and 2017 respectively. The vineyard is composed of different clones, with most being G5V12 or Wadenswil, with some Abel, 115, 777, and MV6 clones added from the 2017 planting. The fruit is hand-picked, and destemmed (with 25% kept as whole bunches) to vats, where they undergo a cold soak for three days before fermentation begins. After primary fermentation, the must is pressed to French oak puncheons (with 30% being new), where it matures on lees for eight months before being transferred, racked, and blended in a tank for a further rest of six weeks before bottling.

Other Reviews....
If you seek a fruit-pure, flint-struck pinot noir, you are indeed in the right place. Those reductive tones lie nicely simpatico with the pure red/dark cherry, plum and raspberry fruits and there are hints of medina spice, amaro, twiggy bits, turned earth, crushed mountain herbs and purple florals in the mix. On the palate, there is a fine balance and tension between fruit, reduction and fine minerality. The wine shows a composed, complex array of spice, sinew and lovely pure fruit, finishing long, flinty and true. Drink 2025-2038.
96 points
Dave Brookes - James Halliday's Wine Companion