2022 Place of Changing Winds Between Two Mountains Pinot Noir

WINEMAKER: Robert Walters 
REGION: Macedon Ranges, VIC
VARIETY: Pinot Noir
VITICULTURE: Organic

SUPER LIMITED. Place of Changing Winds is roughly equidistant between Mount Macedon and Mount Bullengarook, hence the name of this cuvée, which is essentially the most representative Pinot of the season. It’s a fine, textural Pinot produced from all the estate’s plots (including the highest-density vines), save what went into the tiny Beyond the Forest cuvée. It spent 18 months maturing in Stockinger casks with 50% new oak (although this new component was a 1,000-litre cask, so it has very little impact). It’s a wine that will drink well young and has significant cellaring potential. It was bottled in January 2024.

The vintage: The 2022 season demanded a huge amount of work from the POCW vineyard team. The long, slow ripening season was the second of three consecutive La Niña vintages, and harvest was even later than 2021, beginning in the third week of April (so, very late!). In the end, thanks to meticulous canopy management, very low yields and a few warm days at the very end of the season, the Place of Changing Winds team harvested a small crop of perfectly clean, ripe fruit. The bunches were once again very small (average 46 grams—tiny!), and each parcel was picked separately as each arrived at maturity. In the end, 7.2 tonnes of Pinot and 2.2 tonnes of Chardonnay were harvested—at an average of just over 200 grams of fruit per vine. To give that very low number some context, when you convert these yields to hectolitres per hectare (hl/ha), you arrive at a figure of less than 20hl/ha—roughly half the quantity permitted in Burgundy’s Grand Cru vineyards.

The wines: In 2022, Place of Changing Winds made a Larderdark Chardonnay, a vineyard-wide blend under the Between Two Mountains label. There is no High Density this year, nor will there be one from 2023. This is because the estate’s highest-density vines are always the last to ripen, and in the cool, late seasons of ’22 and ’23, the fruit from these vines did not reach the point where they justified a separate cuvée. The fruit, therefore, went into the Between Two Mountains blend. Remember, however, that all the vines at Place of Changing Winds are high density! The 2022 Pinot has wonderful finesse and perfume, while the Chardonnay is a powerful yet racy wine with a lot of character. All three are the product of the place, a no-compromise approach in the vines and cellar and, of course, the long 2022 season. This release also sees the return of the Tradition label—the first release of the red since 2019 and the first white Tradition ever. Both are superb.