Wine by Farr - RP Pinot Noir 2023

A family run estate, Gary Farr purchased the property in 1994 and has developed a distinct style of wine in Geelong, the southwestern wine region of Victoria. Today, Nick Farr, the next generation, has taken the reins and with it the calibre of wines continue to soar as he produces premium fruit with a flavour, bouquet and colour that is unique to the Geelong region.

The RP Pinot Noir (RP – Robyn Pamela) is in recognition of the matriarch. It is not only the support and goffering that Robyn has endured for Gary’s 40 year career. She has been in the vineyard and planted the first vines, driven the tractors, filled barrels and pigeaged at midnight. If we are ever a man down Robyn has always been the first one we have called to fill the void no matter the job, no matter the time of day. You can always count on mum.

The nose of this wine is endlessly complex, as the previous wines were, but it is more fully resolved. In that I mean it is riper, less herbal, softer and more fully formed. The wine makes you salivate, and is the very type of wine that helps define vinous descriptors like “peacocks tail”. In the abstract sense, these words, like so many others, seem like flummery, but the description comes from the sense of a broadening and greater intricacy, and indeed volume, that the wine exhibits. It is how the wine delivers more beauty towards the “end” of the palate, as it is swallowed. The RP is seamless. I can’t find anything to fault in the RP, it is luxurious and the zenith of Pinot Noir expression in my opinion. - Ben Knight