Online Wine Store
Shop Menu
Meadowbank Sparkling Blanc De Noirs 2021
Regular price
$86.00
Regular price
Unit price
/
per
Couldn't load pickup availability
-
TASTING NOTE: “Strawberry shortcake, marzipan, salted dough, a mint and white flower perfume. It has flavour, red fruits and tangerine, crisp acidity with a lively tickle of bubbles, a salty nutty character, with a finish that’s kind of bold, but also long and savoury. I like it. Complex and good to drink.”
94 Points - Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
- ABOUT THE WINE: Peter Dredge has vaulted Meadowbank’s sparkling programme to great heights in no time. The estate started producing its Blanc de Noirs in 2018, so 2021 marks the fourth release. Dredge tells us Pinot Noir takes on lees characters earlier than Chardonnay, so his Blanc de Noirs will always be released from a more recent vintage than the Blanc de Blancs. The fruit grows on a northeast-facing block with sandy soils over coffee rock on a rolling, five-degree slope in Far Horse Vineyard. The growing season was moderate to cool, paving the way for long, even ripening. Though yields were down, quality was through the roof. This release was vinified in stainless steel, and Peter Dredge only extracted the cream of the crop, using just 300 litres of juice per tonne in its production (the norm is 500-550 litres). The wine spent three years on lees before disgorgement in late 2024 with 3g/L dosage. Here you get the kind of quality you expect from a vineyard that supplies House of Arras, made by a maverick talent who cut his teeth alongside Australian sparkling-wine doyens Brian Croser and Ed Carr. It’s a beautifully vinous and decadent release, with a generous mouthfeel and classic Meadowbank Pinot Noir characteristics of strawberries and forest fruits balanced by fine acidity and whopping energy. Add in some savoury complexity and great length of flavour, and away we go.
- ABOUT THE PRODUCER: When Gerald Ellis started planting vines on his sheep farm in 1976, conventional wisdom said you couldn’t grow grapes in the cold wilds of Tasmania. But he did, the Meadowbank vineyard is today held up as one of the jewels in Tasmania. High in Tasmania’s Derwent Valley, Meadowbank’s vines are rooted in loose sand and sandstone overlying dark brown coffee rock, rich in iron oxides and organic matter. While the vineyard operation has long been positioned at the pinnacle, the winemaking fortunes of the Meadowbank label had ebbed and flowed over the years. In late 2015, all that changed with the arrival of Peter Dredge. Immediately before his partnership with the Ellis family, Dredge spent five years as the leading man at Bay of Fires and House of Arras when Accolade was Meadowbank’s largest customer. Before that, there was a long stretch at Petaluma under Brian Croser. He’s one of Tasmania’s and Australia’s finest (and cheekiest) winemakers. Today Meadowbank spans 52 hectares, of which just eight, planted on their own rootstocks, are cherry-picked for the Meadowbank wines. Gerald’s passionate and thoughtful daughter, Mardi, is the current custodian, and the vines are managed without herbicides with the plan being to explore complete organics—something scarce in Tassie and an evolution that can only result in even higher quality.
- COUNTRY: Australia
- REGION: Derwent Valley, Tasmania
- VARIETAL: Pinot Noir
- WINE STYLE: Sparkling Wine
- WINEMAKER: Peter Dredge
- CLASSIFICATION: Minimal Intervention, Sustainable Farming, Vegan
- CLOSURE: Cork
- ABV%: 11.5%
- SIZE: 750ml
