2025 Joshua Cooper Doug's Vineyard Macedon Pinot Noir 750ml

"Quite reductive on opening, aka, smoky, bold flint scents, a tension and grip in palate with smoky-stony elements in play. Catnip for some, distracting for me, but it does blow off quite soon after pouring, so stay the course if you wish to get past that. Dark cherry, paprika, eucalyptus, green capsicum and green peppercorn elements in the mesh of characters. Chinotto orange, blood orange making freshness happen. Pleasing. A good energy to the wine too. It soars with time, silky and long, persistent and interesting with great shape. Charm plus." 94Pts. - Mike Bennie, The Wine Front 

"Doug’s Vineyard is situated on the outskirts of the township of Romsey in the Macedon Ranges.

Owned by the Newnham family, it was planted 20 years ago to predominantly MV6 and smaller

amounts of 114 and 115 clone pinot noir.

A cool hamlet, the vines sit at around 500m altitude, atop a North and North East facing hillside on

red rocky volcanic basalt soil, moderating vigour and providing amazing intensity to the fruit,

ripening small, beautifully formed clusters at low sugar levels.

Once hand harvested in the cool of morning, with careful sorting in the vineyard, grapes were

transferred to open fermenter with 20% as whole bunches and the remainder de-stemmed. The must

was then allowed to soak 4-5 days at its cool ambient temperature until fermentation commenced.

Thereafter the grapes were gently extracted by a combination of pumping over and pigeage by foot.

The wine was then pressed after a total of three weeks on skins and transferred to two new (Laurent

“Magic Cask” thick stave, blonde toast) seven young (2-4yo Laurent “Magic Cask”) and ten old

(6-10yo) oak Burgundian piece for lees ageing for 12 months, followed by four months in stainless

steel on fine lees before racking and bottling, unfined and unfiltered.

Deep ruby. Bright, concentrated raspberry and blackberry fruit, rose garden in the morning due and potpourri complexed with exotic spice.. Concentrated and fleshy throughout the mid plate and long with ribbons of fine velvety tannin and creamy pinot fruits, combined with the typical exotic spice always evident in the Doug’s cuvee. 

One of our best vintages from this lovely site, showing the exceptional combination of freshness, depth and structure in an elegant frame. Cellaring will be well rewarded" - Joshua Cooper on 2025