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Ochota Barrels

2025

‘A Forest’

Pinot Noir   |   Adelaide Hills - Australia
Shelf Talker Spec Sheet Wine Label Bottle Image

About

The opening bass line of ‘A Forest’ by The Cure transcends the listener into a blissful, enigmatic and meditative trance in a place where the road splits into hopeful jubilation or heartfelt loss.  The same holds true for this wine; nearly a decade on in the evolution of this wine, it has found the path of jubilation.  The paradox of Adelaide Hills Pinot Noir is that the highs are there but often disappointment looms.  Amber continues to go from strength to strength with her Pinot Noirs. Sourced again from Sam Virgara’s ‘Chapel Valley’ planting in Piccadilly, farmed by Amber’s good friend Laurence Scanlon.

The winemaking is all about staying out of the way. The grapes were hand-harvested partially destemmed (roughly 90% of the lot, with 10% kept as whole clusters).  The microferments of berries and bunches were kept separate by clone and cold soaked in open-top plastic fermenters until fermentation occurred naturally.  The ferments were gently hand plunged across 1-2 weeks before being basket-pressed to old French barriques and one new French barrique.  After seven months the wine was bottled with just a coarse filtration and small addition of sulfur. No fining.

Stats

  • Grapes: 100% Pinot Noir
  • Vineyard: Chapel Valley Vineyard (Piccadilly)
  • Vine Age: 25-years-old
  • Soil Type: Quartz & ironstone riddled sandy loam
  • Viticulture: Practicing organic
  • Fermentation: Native – open-top plastic fermenters (10% whole-cluster)
  • Skin Contact: 14 days
  • Aging: 7 months in old French barriques (one new Chassin barrique)
  • Alcohol: 12.6%
  • pH: 3.71
  • Total Acidity: 4.7 g/L
  • Total SO2: 67 ppm
  • Total Production: 196 cases
  • UPC: None
  • SRP: $63.99

Tasting Note

Translucent ruby. It arrives like a hymn carried through ‘a forest’ with notes of undergrowth, crushed rose petals, snapped stems, and the dark perfume of damsons fallen into the moss. There is something gloriously unvarnished in its beauty: peaty and faintly feral, redolent of tarred red currants, gingerbreak, and the medicinal flutter of old apothecaries. The palate is taut and close-limbed at first, its delicate sappiness concealing a restless energy that unfurls into a provocative dance with air, each sip revealing less and less. Drink it over days to feel the transformative evocation; the 2025 sheds its restraint with almost theatrical abandon, becoming an etheral gospel.

Press & Reviews

The Halliday Wine Companion

94

"This is an exceptionally vibrant and juicy expression of Hills pinot. Cranberry, red cherry, raspberry and strawberry lead, with a smattering of truffle, dried leaf litter and bay. It is pretty, dialled in, with buoyant fruit that brings freshness to the fore. A sweep of amaro bitters through the ends. It's not in the realm of 'just a glass' so proceed with caution."
- Katrina Butler
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Producer


Ochota Barrels

Region


Adelaide Hills

Country


Australia

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