2025 By Farr Viognier | Premium Geelong Cool Climate Viognier

🍑 BY FARR | VIOGNIER REIMAGINED — PERFUME, TEXTURE & BEAUTIFUL COOL-CLIMATE FRESHNESS

Could This Be Australia's Greatest Viognier?

2025 By Farr Viognier is going to come as a revelation

Geelong, Victoria

RRP $117 a bottle

Forget everything you think you know about Viognier.

If your experience of the variety is big, oily, overly ripe wines loaded with apricot and alcohol, the 2025 By Farr Viognier is going to come as a revelation.

This is Viognier through the Farr lens: perfumed but restrained, luscious but precise, powerful yet beautifully fresh.

The 2025 comes from two vineyards, including By Farr's original house block planted in 1994, with the second component coming from younger vines on red ironstone soils. The fruit is now deliberately picked earlier to retain natural acidity and produce a more delicate, refined expression of Viognier.

One current assessment goes as far as calling the 2025 the best example of Viognier in Australia and the pick of By Farr's 2025 whites.

At RRP $117, this is unquestionably serious Viognier.

Tasting Notes

The 2025 is beautifully aromatic without becoming overpowering.

Expect layers of:

• Fresh apricot
• White and yellow peach
• Lime and citrus
• Green mango
• White flowers
• Ginger
• Cashew
• Nougat
• Flint
• Subtle creamy complexity
• Fine mineral freshness

The palate is where this wine separates itself from so many Viogniers.

There's plenty of flesh, curve and luscious texture, but a remarkably precise line of acidity cuts straight through the richness. That freshness keeps the stone fruit vibrant and prevents the wine from ever becoming broad or cloying.

The 2025 has been described as complex, long, balanced and complete, with citrus-driven acidity bringing tension to its naturally generous texture.

Rich but fresh. Exotic but controlled. Powerful but elegant.

That's the magic here.

Two Vineyards – Including the Original 1994 Plantings

The vineyard story is fascinating.

The 2025 By Farr Viognier is a blend of two vineyard sites.

The first is the original house block, planted in 1994, where friable red soils sit over limestone before moving into sandstone. These are similar soils to those supporting the celebrated Sangreal Pinot Noir and By Farr Chardonnay.

The second component comes from a younger vineyard planted on red ironstone soil.

That combination provides the Farr family with different expressions of Viognier to work with.

But there's another crucial factor.

Picking time.

Viognier – Get the Picking Date Wrong and It's Over

Viognier is notoriously difficult to get right.

Leave it too long and acidity can disappear rapidly. The fruit becomes overly ripe, alcohol rises and the wine can quickly become heavy.

By Farr has responded by picking its Viognier earlier in recent vintages, specifically to preserve natural acidity while retaining the variety's distinctive perfume and flavour.

That decision is fundamental to the style.

You still get the peach, apricot and exotic perfume that tells you unmistakably that this is Viognier.

But you also get tension.

Freshness.

And most importantly—you want another glass.

The 2025 Vintage – Perfect for Viognier

The 2025 vintage presented challenges at By Farr, with warm conditions and relatively rapid ripening.

For Viognier, however, those conditions appear to have worked beautifully.

Nick Farr has noted the narrow picking window of the variety, where even a very small delay can result in acidity dropping dramatically. In 2025, the fruit achieved ripeness while retaining excellent acid structure.

The result is a wine with genuine richness and generosity but unusually good tension.

That's what makes the 2025 so exciting.

Fascinating Winemaking

By Farr doesn't treat Viognier like a simple aromatic white.

The fruit is foot stomped and left on skins for at least a couple of hours to extract additional phenolics, flavour and texture.

It's then:

Pressed and cooled
Transferred directly to barrel with all solids
Naturally fermented
Gently stirred towards the end of autumn
Allowed to undergo malolactic fermentation
Racked, fined and filtered
Bottled approximately 11 months after harvest

This helps explain the wine's extraordinary texture.

It's not simply aromatic.

There's real weight, shape and complexity through the palate.

Not Your Typical Viognier

This is an important point.

Viognier is naturally capable of producing wines with huge perfume, ripe apricot flavours and considerable body.

By Farr could easily push those characteristics to the extreme.

Instead, they do the opposite.

The winery describes its own 2025 as a subtly perfumed expression, with fresh peach and apricot, a restrained yet luscious palate and a distinctive ginger-like freshness through the finish.

That's what makes it so compelling.

It tastes unmistakably like Viognier.

But it drinks with the precision and structure of serious modern Australian Chardonnay.

The By Farr Pedigree

Most people come to By Farr for the Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

That's understandable.

But serious By Farr drinkers know the Viognier is one of the sleepers in the portfolio.

The same obsession with vineyard, picking decisions, texture and balance that goes into Sangreal, Farrside and By Farr Chardonnay is evident here.

The difference is that Viognier gives the Farr family an entirely different aromatic palette to work with.

Apricot. Peach. Flowers. Ginger. Flint. Exotic fruit.

And in 2025, they've managed to capture all of that while maintaining extraordinary freshness.

Food Pairings

Viognier can be brilliant at the table.

Try the 2025 with:

• Lobster
• Seared scallops
• Roast chicken
• Pork belly
• Thai-style seafood
• Mild Indian curries
• Moroccan chicken
• Creamy pasta
• Pumpkin ravioli
• Washed-rind cheeses

Its combination of stone fruit, texture and spice makes it particularly good with Thai and Indian flavours, as well as richer seafood dishes.

Serve around 10–12°C in a good Chardonnay or white Burgundy glass.

Cellaring

The great thing about the 2025 is that it's already gorgeous.

The peach, apricot, flowers and exotic fruit are wonderfully expressive right now.

But By Farr believes its Viognier benefits significantly from around 12 months of additional bottle age, allowing the acidity to soften and the fruit to become even more expressive.

Drink now–2033+.

I'd buy enough to do both.

Open some young for the perfume and freshness, then put several bottles away and watch the texture and secondary complexity develop.

Why We Love It

This could be one of the most underrated wines By Farr makes.

Everyone talks about the Chardonnay.

Everyone talks about Sangreal, Farrside and Tout Près.

But then you taste the Viognier.

The 2025 By Farr Viognier combines fruit from two vineyards—including the original 1994 plantings—with earlier harvesting, natural fermentation, skin contact, barrel fermentation and around 11 months of maturation.

And what comes out the other end is extraordinary.

Fresh peach. Apricot. Lime. Green mango. White flowers. Ginger. Cashew. Flint. Nougat.

It's luscious without being heavy, aromatic without being excessive and powerful without sacrificing freshness.

At RRP $117, this isn't an everyday Viognier.

It's a statement about just how serious the variety can be.

If you think you don't like Viognier because you've found it too rich, too alcoholic or too blowsy in the past, this is the wine I'd use to change your mind.

And if you're already a Viognier lover?

The 2025 By Farr Viognier should be right at the top of your Australian shopping list.

👉 Perfumed, textural and beautifully restrained. If you love By Farr Chardonnay but want to try something completely different, the 2025 Viognier deserves your attention.