The Most Expensive Australian Wine? Gippsland Pinot Noir

In 1979, Phillip Jones abandoned his telecommunications career to plant the first vines in Gippsland—a large, but until then, mostly unexplored wine region east of Melbourne. His aspiration: to make a great Australian Bordeaux. Cabernet, however, struggled to ripen in the cool, maritime climate. Instead, it was his three rows of Pinot Noir that would ultimately make him a wine industry star with his first release under the Bass Phillip label in 1991.

Jones’s ultra-premium Pinots put Gippsland on the map. The price for his first top-tier Reserve bottling was higher than any Pinot in Australia ever. Today, it’s the most expensive Australian wine available in the U.S., priced at upwards of $1,000 USD a bottle.

But for over three decades, Jones was an outlier in a vast region with few producers and a reputation as backwater cousin to the more glamorous Mornington Peninsula and hip Yarra Valley regions. Gippsland’s image is finally beginning to shift; it was described in the 2023 book How to Drink Australian, by U.S. sommeliers Jane Lopes and Jonathan Ross, as “one of the most exciting in all of Australia.”

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The buzz is not coming from large corporate producers—they haven’t reached Gippsland (yet)—but from a steadily increasing number of experienced, well-traveled, small-scale producers who have invested their own cash in a region they believe is destined for greatness. It’s just two hours from one of Australia’s major cities, offers plentiful water in a mainly drought-plagued country, has interesting topography and ancient soils beneath land that is still comparatively affordable—honestly, it’s no wonder so many talented winemakers have bet the farm on Gippsland.

“It’s the last frontier in terms of affordable land, some really fantastic sites that haven’t been planted yet,” says Ryan Ponsford of Entropy Wines, whose small label has earned him success Down Under but isn’t yet exported to the U.S. In fact, only a small number of Gippsland wines are available Stateside—but it’s worth direct ordering, when you can.

Following Phillip Jones’s lead, many Gippsland growers and winemakers are focused on Pinot Noir, which, in this part of Australia shows distinctive, bright natural acidity, fine tannins and beautiful aromatics, from primary red fruits and florals to savory black olive and bay leaf; from earthy beetroot to ferrous nuances. Gippsland Pinots can be denser than Mornington or Yarra Pinots, depending on where they’re grown, but they’re equally as elegant.

“The style of Gippsland Pinot is really distinctive, which I think is another really exciting part of the region,” says Ponsford. “When you get a good Gippsland Pinot, you know it’s from Gippsland straight away.”

Pinning Gippsland down geographically, however, is a difficult task. Spanning more than 300 miles along Australia’s southeastern coastline and sandwiched between the Great Dividing Range to the north and the Bass Strait to the south, there are at least 10 different soil types across the three unofficial subregions, West, South and East Gippsland. The latter is farthest from Melbourne with drought conditions during much of the year, so it plays home to just a handful of wineries, like Nicholson River, Lightfoot and McAlister Vineyards. Much of the growth is happening in the West and South.

Closest to Melbourne and bordering the Yarra Valley, the wineries of West Gippsland nestle in the valleys of the gorgeous Strzelecki ranges. Its gravel and red volcanic loamy soils nurture vines from cutting edge, lo-fi producers like Moondarra, Momento Mori, Patrick Sullivan and William Downie. The latter, whose ultra-sensitive wine growing approach (and who until recently farmed the vineyards by horse and plough) predates Australia’s natural wine movement, is the only producer focused solely on Pinot Noir. With decades of winemaking experience around Victoria and 15 years in Gippsland, Downie is one of the region’s most longstanding champions and has mentored many newer producers.

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Another of the region’s more established producers is Marcus Satchell, who, with his wife, Lisa Sartori, founded Dirty Three Wines. Satchell grew up in South Gippsland and claims to know every vineyard in the region. He takes advantage of the region’s lush rolling hills, extreme maritime climate (it’s one of the coolest on mainland Australia) and unique soil mixture of red clay, volcanic basalt and granitic sandy loam to craft a large range of wines, including an electric Riesling and several tasty bubbles. But the stars are a trio of beautifully aromatic and downright sexy Pinots called Dirt One, Two and Three, from single sites around South Gippsland.

“The potential in South Gippsland is massive,” says Satchell. “It’s only a matter of time before a bigger company sees that and invests here.”

“For now, it’s the little guys—producers like Dirty Three, along with Fleet Wines, Caledonia Australis and The Wine Farm—who are realizing that potential. “

And of course, there’s South Gippsland’s most famous producer, Bass Phillip. Jones sold the winery in 2020 to a group of investors who included Jean-Marie Fourrier of Burgundy’s Domaine Fourrier. Fourrier has taken the chief winemaker title and assures fans that Bass Phillip’s world-class Pinots aren’t going anywhere.

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This article originally appeared in the April 2024 of Wine Enthusiast magazine. Click here to subscribe today!

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Published: April 11, 2024