2024 The Wanderer Upper Yarra Valley Pinot Noir

Best Pinot Noir - Yarra Valley Wine Show 2025

The Wanderer is the personal project of Gembrook Hill winemaker Andrew Marks, who draws on select sites across the Yarra Valley to craft wines that reflect both vineyard character and his own light-handed approach. It’s an outlet for Andrew to explore parcels beyond the family estate, with the Upper Yarra Pinot Noir sitting at the core of the range and underscoring the finesse that this cooler part of the region can deliver.

Sourced from a single vineyard in Yellingbo, a cooler site in the Upper Yarra, this wine captures the elegance and fine detail that Andrew consistently seeks in his work with Pinot Noir. Winemaking sees 20% whole bunches incorporated, and is matured in large format French oak (30% new) for a period of 11 months.

Other Reviews....
This is another super release. Read everything you can about Australian pinot noir and then just go out and buy Wanderer and Gembrook Hill. Smoke, red cherries, fragrant herbs, undergrowth and graphite. The tension in this wine is electric; the finish is authoritative; the complexity is inherent and from the first sip to the last you are fully aware that you are in the hands of beauty. But this – at $58, remarkably – and you’re missing out on nothing. Drink 2026-2033+.
95+ points
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front