Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir 2024 (Yarra Valley)

Winemaking Notes
The Innocent Bystander Pinot Noir 2024 showcases the winemaking team's commitment to gentle handling and careful nurturing of the fantastic grapes they've harvested from the Yarra Valley. The grapes were harvested between February and April, followed by a one to two-day cold soaking period to extract colour and aromatics whilst preserving the delicate fruit characters. During fermentation, 10% of the whole bunch was used, and techniques like hand plunging and air maceration were employed for gentle colour extraction, ensuring the wine displays the attractive and captivating scent highlighting ripe blueberry, boysenberry, cherry, and earthy dried spice notes that define this wine. The wine underwent indigenous fermentation with a combination of yeasts, allowing the natural terroir to express itself, with 30% matured for six months in French oak barrels, 10% of which were new, adding subtle complexity and structure whilst maintaining the delicious plush red cherries, subtle hints of cola and spice, and smooth, velvety texture thanks to gentle tannins. The reds at Innocent Bystander are treated to gentle fermentations in open top fermenters, which might include a portion of whole bunch or wild yeast ferment, and the bottom line is that they don't overwork their wines, treating them gently to ensure their bright fruit characters shine through on a long, smooth palate.

Vintage Conditions
The 2024 vintage was an excellent vintage for Pinot Noir in both the upper and lower Yarra Valley, with ideal conditions allowing the grapes to develop the ripe blueberry, boysenberry, and cherry characters that define this wine. A wet spring was welcomed, filling the dams and setting up beautifully to a dry growing season in January and February, providing the perfect balance of water availability and ripening conditions for quality Pinot Noir production. The Yarra Valley is Innocent Bystander's home and where it all began, with a wine history that dates back well over 100 years and a reputation cemented in the last 15 years largely thanks to the fantastic Pinot Noir and Chardonnay produced there. The soils, climate, and combination of cool mountainside vineyards and warmer valley floor sites provide the diversity and complexity of flavours and aromas that make their Yarra Valley wines so spectacular, and the 2024 vintage conditions allowed fruit from both the upper and lower Yarra Valley to express these qualities beautifully. The wet spring followed by the dry growing season in January and February created ideal conditions for the grapes to ripen evenly whilst maintaining the elegant structure and velvety texture that characterise Yarra Valley Pinot Noir, resulting in a wine with delicious plush red cherries, subtle hints of cola and spice, and smooth, gentle tannins that make it immediately approachable whilst possessing the structure to reward cellaring.