🔥 97 POINTS | JUST 49 DOZEN PRODUCED | INCREDIBLY RARE YARRA VALLEY PINOT

Only 49 Dozen Made – This Is the Pinnacle of Medhurst Pinot Noir

This is one of the rarest and most serious wines Medhurst has produced.

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

Yarra Valley, Victoria

RRP $112.50 a bottle

This is not simply another premium Yarra Valley Pinot Noir.

The 2021 Medhurst Reserve Pinot Noir is an extraordinarily small-production wine made from specially selected Reserve rows of MV6 Pinot Noir within Medhurst's estate vineyard at Gruyere.

How small?

Just 49 dozen were produced.

That's fewer than 600 bottles.

The fruit was harvested from B Block, fermented as 100% whole berries and matured for 15 months in French oak, 50% new. Medhurst describes it as a fine-boned but powerful Pinot with the structure to reward more than a decade in the cellar.

Then there's the score:

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion.

This is one of the rarest and most serious wines Medhurst has produced.

Tasting Notes

This is beautifully complex Pinot Noir, with layers of:

• Red cherry
• Pomegranate
• Raspberry
• Rose petals
• Five spice
• Subtle earthy complexity
• Fine French oak
• Chalky tannins
• Savoury spice

Medhurst describes the bouquet as delicately perfumed, with crystalline red fruits, pomegranate and rose petals, revealing itself gradually in the glass.

There's real intensity through the palate, but nothing feels heavy.

Instead, the wine is fine-boned, silky and precise, with red fruits flowing through a beautifully structured framework of fine chalky tannin.

And the finish?

Long, pure and persistent.

This is elegant Yarra Valley Pinot Noir with serious substance underneath.

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

That's an elite score for Australian Pinot Noir and immediately places the 2021 Medhurst Reserve Pinot Noir among the standout wines produced by the estate. Medhurst's own technical information confirms the 97-point Halliday Wine Companion rating.

But the score becomes even more compelling when you look at the wine itself.

MV6 clone.
Reserve rows.
100% whole berries.
50% new French oak.
15 months maturation.
49 dozen produced.

This is genuinely small-production fine wine.

Reserve Rows of MV6 Pinot Noir

The fruit comes from Medhurst's Estate Vineyard at Gruyere, specifically:

B Block – Reserve Rows
Clone – MV6
Soils – Mountain-derived brown/grey loams and gravelly duplex clays

MV6 is one of Australia's most important Pinot Noir clones and has produced some of the country's greatest examples of the variety.

Here, Medhurst has isolated its best Reserve material and produced an incredibly limited wine designed to show exactly what this vineyard can achieve.

This isn't a regional blend.

It's a tiny parcel from a specific part of the estate.

Serious Small-Batch Winemaking

The attention to detail is impressive.

The Reserve Pinot Noir was picked on 24 February 2021 and immediately placed in the cool room overnight.

The fruit was then destemmed into vats while retaining 100% whole berries.

Fermentation began naturally with indigenous yeasts after four days. The cap was handled gently, with twice-daily pump-overs and occasional pigeage, and the wine remained on skins for 15 days.

After pressing, it was transferred into French oak for malolactic fermentation and matured for:

15 months in French oak – 50% new.

The wine was bottled on 10 May 2022.

And again, production was microscopic:

49 dozen.

The Benchmark 2021 Vintage

There's another reason this wine is special.

2021 was an exceptional vintage at Medhurst.

After a wet start, conditions improved through spring. A mild, dry December was followed by January rain before February turned warm—but importantly, not hot—with just 4mm of rainfall.

That allowed the fruit to ripen gradually and evenly.

Medhurst describes the resulting wines as bright and energetic, with excellent natural acidity and a combination of fruit weight, complexity, line and length. The winery's final assessment of 2021 is particularly telling:

An excellent, benchmark vintage.

That's exactly the vintage you want when buying a serious Pinot Noir for the cellar.

Five Years from Vintage – Now It Gets Really Interesting

And this is one of the strongest selling points for the wine today.

You're not buying a newly bottled premium Pinot Noir and then having to wait five years.

The waiting has already begun for you.

The wine was bottled back in May 2022 and has now had several years to settle and evolve.

The primary cherry, pomegranate and floral characters should still be beautifully alive, but you're now moving towards the stage where Pinot starts developing more savoury complexity.

Think:

Forest floor. Dried flowers. Spice. Earth. Game. Mushroom.

That intersection between youthful fruit and emerging maturity can be a magical place for great Pinot Noir.

Medhurst Reserve – The Best of the Estate

Medhurst specifically describes its Reserve wines as showcasing the best of what it produces, with a focus on the highest quality and genuine small-batch winemaking.

The Reserve tier sits above the Estate wines and is made only in very limited quantities.

That makes this 2021 particularly compelling.

You're not simply buying the premium label.

You're buying one of only 49 dozen bottles produced from Reserve MV6 rows in what Medhurst itself calls a benchmark vintage.

Food Pairings

This deserves something special:

• Roast duck
• Peking duck
• Duck breast with cherries
• Roast quail
• Mushroom and truffle risotto
• Beef Wellington
• Pork belly
• Venison
• Wild mushrooms
• Comté or Gruyère

I'd go straight for duck and mushrooms.

Medhurst recommends serving the wine at around 13°C, which is an excellent reminder not to serve premium Pinot Noir too warm.

Cellaring

This is absolutely a Pinot Noir worth cellaring.

Medhurst specifically says the wine will reward careful cellaring for 10+ years.

Given the quality of the 2021 vintage, the concentration of the Reserve fruit and its tannin structure, I'd be very comfortable with:

Drink now–2035+.

If drinking it now, give it a large Burgundy glass and allow it plenty of time to open.

Why We Love It

This might be one of the most compelling Medhurst wines to put in the cellar.

Look at the combination:

97 Points – Halliday Wine Companion
Benchmark 2021 Vintage
Reserve-row MV6 Pinot Noir
100% Whole Berry
15 Months French Oak – 50% New
Only 49 Dozen Produced

That final number is extraordinary.

At fewer than 600 bottles produced, this is a genuinely rare Australian Pinot Noir.

And at RRP $112.50, you're buying a 97-point, tiny-production Reserve Pinot with several years of bottle development already behind it.

If you collect serious Yarra Valley Pinot Noir, don't overlook this because Medhurst isn't priced like some of the region's cult labels.

The 2021 Medhurst Reserve Pinot Noir has the score, the vineyard selection, the vintage, the tiny production and the cellaring potential.

This is Medhurst showing exactly how good its Pinot Noir can be.