Reviews of our wines are detailed below.
Our wines are released after an extended period in bottle to ensure they are immediately approachable and showing their full potential.
Please join our mailing list (bottom of page) if you would like to receive information on future releases.
2021 Estate Pinot Noir
Halliday Wine Companion (95 points, gold medal)
A lot more fragrance and flavour this vintage, and all wonderful as they are in sync. Dark cherries, all spiced up, wild strawberries, some kirsch, sumac and tamarind with oak spice, too. As usual, mid weighted with supple tannins and the light acidity keeps it buoyant. It’s a gentle wine. One of the most unique pinots thanks to its flavour profile. You can pick it at forty paces.
Jane Faulkner (6 July, 2023)
The Wine Front (95 points)
Excellent pinot noir. It has power, it has presence, it has length. Black cherry into plum fruit flavours merge with smoky oak, deli meat, undergrowth and twiggy herbs. It’s fundamentally varietal and yet it has impact in the glass, and it has seriously good length too. This is a wine that unfolds slowly but appreciably as it rests in the glass. There’s a bright, silken, redcurrant aspect too; it lays down its own law.
Campbell Mattinson (14 February 2023)
2019 Estate Pinot Noir
Halliday Wine Companion (95 points, gold medal)
What a lovely, composed and utterly delicious wine.
Delicately fragrant, with florals and savoury tones. There’s a core of ripe yet lightly spiced fruit, a mere hint of forest floor and oak. What seals the deal across the medium-bodied palate are ribbons of fine, textural tannins.
Jane Faulkner (13 August, 2021)
The Wine Front (94 points)
This sets a pretty high watermark for Forty Paces.
It’s an excellent Pinot Noir. It’s beautifully flavoured, powered and sustained. It offers boysenberry, red cherry and forest berry flavours; it’s blessed with both sweet floral and spice notes; it has a refreshing feel but its power is clear. I took this to dinner and it got better and better; I looked at it again the next day and it was still bell clear and brilliant. Drink 2022-2028+
Campbell Mattinson (11 January 2022)
2017 Estate Pinot Noir
Halliday Wine Companion (95 points, gold medal)
Beautiful limpid crimson-purple colour; the perfumed rose petal, red cherry, flowers and gentle spices lead into a nuanced array of flavours on a palate of great delicacy, and equal length.
James Halliday (1 August, 2019)
The Wine Front (93+ points)
Pinot Noir from the Macedon Ranges. Only 140-ish dozen made.
It’s light and fragrant, but insistent. Indeed it’s quite beautifully structured. Boysenberry and red cherry, undergrowth and cranberry flavours. It’s a succulent wine, fresh, cool climate to its back teeth, but ripe, flowing and firm. It’s good now but it has cellar-ability written all over it. I kept coming back to this. It’s excellent. The florals of a green garden. More spring-like than autumnal. Drink 2022 - 2027+
Campbell Mattinson (1 October, 2020)
2014 Estate Pinot Noir
Halliday Wine Companion (92 points, silver medal)
“The Natural”. Destemmed, open-fermented with 10% whole bunches, pressed after 19 days extended maceration, matured in French oak (20% new) for 16 months. Good colour; has considerable power and depth, varietal character not in question on the expressive bouquet or the layered, dark berry palate. The low alcohol is a surprise, except for slightly savoury acidity on the long finish.
James Halliday (6 October, 2016)