Quealy Seventeen Rows Pinot Noir 2021

Although it was purchased in 2003, Quealy’s home vineyard was initially planted in 1982, making this Balnarring vineyard one of Mornington’s oldest Pinot Noir sites. From that era just 17 rows of MV6 Pinot Noir remain, gifting their old-vine fruit to Quealy’s flagship Pinot Noir. The entire vineyard is located on a gentle north-facing slope, on shallow loams over clay. From 2019 these vines have been certified organic.

The 2021 was hand harvested on the 16th of March, entirely destemmed (with zero sulphur added) and wild-fermented in small, one-tonne pots. Only the free-run wine was settled and racked to hogsheads (33% new) with the balance matured in equal proportions of one-year-old and two-year-old wood. 

Seventeen Rows is Quealy’s most savoury and complex wine. It’s crammed with old-vine intensity and has serious structure; and dare we say it, it’s more Burgundian than the other Pinots in the range. Redolent with forest berries earth and spice, the weight is silky and svelte with lovely crunchy acidity and a concentrated lengthy close. This is Quealy at the top of their Pinot game.