Farr Rising Saignee Rose 2024

Saignee, technically meaning “to bleed game meat or poultry”, refers to the way we ‘bleed’ juice for this wine. We allow the Farr Rising pinot noir fruit to sit in tank for two to three hours before bleeding free-run juice at a suitable colour for rosé production. This process concentrates the pinot ferment, but we also produce a barrel-fermented rosé. Natural barrel fermentation at cool temperatures is followed by full malolacitc fermentation. The wine is then placed in four- and five-year-old barrels for 10 months before being filtered and bottled.

‘This wine has been gone for too long. I’ve missed it. It has a pinkie onion skin vibe in the glass, and the nose is of ripe fruits, and a complex oak derived aroma, but not simply woody, maybe more like almonds or more specifically a marzipan character. On second smell, the nose is of a tropical fruit note, nothing too precise, but generous and ripe. It’s fun to keep going back to it. Few pink wines have this intrigue or complexity. I like that about it, especially in a world of triviality and instant gratification expected from rosé wine.

This wine will only be more interesting as it develops and evolves, and that type of thing is becoming scarce. The palate of this wine is soft and generous, like a luxurious sofa. Something you don’t want to get out of. One of, if not Australia’s most impressive pink wines and for good reason. That reason being that it’s complex and delicious on release and if you find that you have some in a few years, it will still over deliver, as a terrific bottle of wine, regardless of colour.’  Nick Farr