Forrest Vineyard, Wilyabrup

Margaret River, Western Australia

Sooooo, things that were just right. The Forrest Vineyard in central Willyabrup and as you may now know my first and devastatingly brutal love, the tiny Tassel Park vineyard was wiped out in 2021 and in 2022 but hope springs eternal and I have learnt to love again. This second SV wine from this excellent site builds on last year’s work and is pretty darn special.

The fruit is of course from a single site, the Forrest Vineyard in the Willyabrup sub-region of Margaret River. Moreover, this wine is from a tiny ridge section from within the middle of this vineyard selectively picked for this wine. Planted to the classic, WA Gin Gin clone, it’s a wine of unbelievable natural acid presence and structural drive. The vineyard is otherwise largely flat and quite close to the coast, some 3 kms only and in common with Tasslel Park, it is planted on deep silver-grey sands. The picking date is generally relatively early in the Chardonnay season given the vineyards low yielding nature.

The grapes were handpicked on 18th of February, a day earlier than 2021, again which I find weird; and whole bunch-pressed directly to new, one- and two-year-old puncheons, with no settling or fining processes. This juice was then carefully monitored and spontaneous fermentation kicked off on day five after pressing. After a Four-week ferment, the wine remained on gross lees un sulphured until September of that year. In December the wine was emptied from barrel, settled, filtered and bottled.

This is an exciting site that holds amazing acid structure and lovely al dente tannin. It needs some time to truly unfurl, unfold, and show its true colours, but one sniff will show, that it has the character that Nocturne’s SV Chardys are famous for, Flint, funk, just ripe stone fruit, citrus and hope…. In hope that change is always to grow and to hopefully improve. Get around this wine bright with flint, funk and grilled lime, it’s a bright new future out there. – Julian Langworthy