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Garagiste

Back With a Bang: Balnarring Pinot Noir and Tuerong Chardonnay
Garagiste

After a string of excellent yet frustratingly small seasons, 2024 delivered the goods for Barney Flanders. Not only was the fruit quality right up there, but the crop levels, though still below average, saw a bounce-back, too. “We worked our behinds off, got the farming right, and hopefully, it paid dividends”. No fear on that front, Barney.


Garagiste’s Tuerong and Balnarring vineyards form the backbone of his Stagiaire wines, so are only released in years when quality and quantity align. “The quality has to be single-vineyard quality,” Barney explains, “I won’t pull from Stagiaire unless it’s worth it.” And in 2024, it certainly was worth it. So, the Tuerong Chardonnay returns after a brief hiatus in 2023, and Balnarring Pinot Noir is back for the first time since 2021. 


Balnarring lies just 10 kilometres from Garagiste’s flagship Merricks vineyard. Despite the proximity, there are distinct differences in the growing cycle and, hence, the style of wines. Balnarring lies further north yet ripens later; the bunches tend to be smaller; and though the subregion is lower, this site sits high, and there’s a small pocket of red dirt (à la Merricks) in the sea of more typical grey and brown soils. You can expect a touch more depth, shade and lifted spice, with refined lines and savoury length. 


Tuerong lies in the most northerly part of the Peninsula and is always the first fruit to land in the Garagiste cellar. It’s a site capable of producing broad wines with ripe, sunny expression, but after 15 years of farming, Barney picks with precision, capturing depth and power while retaining shimmering freshness and tension.

The Wines

Garagiste Tuerong Chardonnay 2024

Garagiste Tuerong Chardonnay 2024

Planted in the late ‘80s, Tuerong is the oldest site Barney works with. The Chardonnay here is always picked first, providing a barometer for the progression of the rest of the vintage. The opportunity to work with the site came up in 2012, and immediately “had a good feel to it”. It’s his aspirational site, providing high-quality fruit that gets better every year. The fruit is hand-harvested from 34-year-old, dry-grown, north-facing vines in grey-black sandy soils over brown sandy loam.

The fruit was picked by hand and pressed as bunches for fermentation in second- and third-fill 500-litre puncheons. A small portion went through natural malolactic fermentation, and the wine rested on full gross lees with no bâtonnage for nine months before bottling. Enticing struck match reduction makes way for a glade of summer citrus, spring florals, salt flecks and a lovely doughy/leesy character. It’s vibrant and pure, with plenty of fleshy weight stitched by mouthwatering acidity and sinewy phenolics. Great length and drive, too: it’s got it all. 

Garagiste Tuerong Chardonnay 2024
Garagiste Balnarring Pinot Noir 2024

Garagiste Balnarring Pinot Noir 2024

Balnarring Pinot makes a welcome return after a brief hiatus caused by a series of low-yielding years. The Balnarring site lies just 10 kilometres from Garagiste’s flagship Merricks vineyard but gives a distinctly different expression: a slightly darker fruit profile and fine, grainy tannin structure. Most years, the site forms the backbone of the Stagiaire Pinot and Chardonnay, but in seasons like 2024, with good yields and top-quality fruit, Barney makes a small-batch, single-site wine. The MV6 vines were planted in 1996 and lie on the region’s signature brown/grey loamy soils.

Unlike the Merricks Pinot, there is no whole bunch influence here—Flanders explains that stems can easily dominate the fruit from this vineyard. The wine matured in 300-litre hogsheads (roughly 20% new) and spent nine months on lees before being bottled unfined and unfiltered. It’s lifted and perfumed with dark berries, woody herbs and spice paving the way for soft, juicy and plump weight and a distinct savoury, mineral flecked finish. A decant and a rich braise will set this off… chef’s kiss!

Garagiste Balnarring Pinot Noir 2024

“Single-site chardonnay and pinot noir star, but a rare bottling of aligoté, plus gris and rosé also compel. Add to that the two micro-block wines, the Terre Maritime Chardonnay – one of the Peninsula’s most singular and brilliant chardonnays – and Terre de Feu Pinot Noir, plus the value and gold-medal-quality Le Stagiaire range, and we have a major star on our hands, albeit, as noted, a quiet one.” Halliday Top 100 Wineries 2024

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