Shining through the Geelong fog; two winemakers, the boss and two other blokes pick the coldest day of the year to taste our entire 2024 & 2025 line-up
I picked up TK at Melbourne Airport. It was the first time we’d met but he wandered over to my car at the Terminal 4 pick-up point and greeted me as if we were old friends.
Good start.
Good bloke, in fact, and the hour from there to our vineyard outside Geelong was an easy one.
It wasn’t until I put all the threads of our meandering conversation together later – and overheard a few other scraps – that I realised that we were on to a good thing. A very good thing.
Quick rewind
TK is our consultant / mate of my brother the boss. TK was having dinner with Albo the night after we had dinner with him. One of his wines picking up a national gong no less.
TK is also a strong voice in the national arena, advocating on behalf of the trade and with a keen understanding of the winds of change blowing in the sector. Which are quite breezy.
TK is also a winemaker and viticulturalist.
So, fingers in pies and a lovely quiet manner that sets everyone perfectly at ease even as he confides over dinner that after a single day with us, he’s already spotted the kind of trouble that could blow through faster than the south-westerly at Mount Moriac. Which is the prevailing wind at our vineyard.
The good thing was that he quite liked a lot of our plan.
And he really liked our wines.
And he loved the vineyard.
So, there was hope — just some realignment and new focus required to get us through that early-stage gestation period that befalls every newish small business. Like us.
And we are right on to that new alignment and focus now.
That’s not what I came to talk about
To badly paraphrase American folk singer and master storyteller Arlo Guthrie from his classic Thanksgiving Day song Alice’s Restaurant:
“That’s not what I came to talk about.”
“I came to talk about our wines.”
The day I picked up TK just happened to be the coldest, wettest morning of the year, and incredibly for Mount Moriac there was even groundwater lying around after heavy overnight rain.
(It wasn’t lying in our two empty dams of course — that would have been a bit much to ask!)
Amidst a genuine pea-souper — that brought back memories of ghost-like footy training nights at nearby Birre where we never quite knew who was and wasn’t there — and in temps that shot up to a toe-curling 4 degrees Celsius by midday, we tasted, plotted and dreamed our way through our entire 2024 and 2025 line up.
Winemaker Alex Byrne ran the show, TK and Damon – the big boss – made intelligent comments and Piers and I made up the numbers.
The wines: Straight from Damon’s Pinot-stained notebook…
2024 Mount Moriac Pinot Noir (pre-bottling)
Deep purple colour, complexity on the nose – earthy, forest floor, cherry and summer berries, spice, young wine acid, with berries & earthiness, good length. A lot of complexity.
2024 Mount Moriac ‘Brothers’ Single Block Pinot Noir (in barrel – Dec ’25 release)
Wow, so much going on in bouquet, floral notes, earthy/forest floor, cherry fruit and dark spices. The palate is slightly disjointed but can see the layers, rich and long but tightly structured. Excited!!!
2024 Mount Moriac Chardonnay
Our Mum is not a big drinker these days, but this one is her pick.
Geelong citrus with a hint of oak and malo, extremely tightly structured will take some time to settle. Racy from front to back but finishes long on the back palate – Chablis style?
2024 Mount Moriac Pinot Gris
10 months in bottle and we can see what block 1 Gris can do. With minimum intervention in the winery still has soft creamy palate weight. Acid is still tight, drinking really well.
2024 Mount Moriac Shiraz (still in barrel – releasing Oct ’25)
Warm year and it shows. Dark berry and plums on the nose with a hint of white pepper. The oak is restrained but fruit tannins are noticeable. Heavier in weight than I expected but has that juicy mouth finish.
The 2025 wines were all through their primary ferment and malo with most just beginning their time in barrel with the aromatic whites in tank and being readied for Sept ’25 release.
2025 Block 6 Pinot Noir MV6
Deep colour, full and rich highly concentrated. Block 6 is starting to show as the work horse block, good weight but not especially varietal. Great blending material.
2025 Block 3 Pinot Noir MV6 & G5V12 combined
Earthy but with great early floral notes (violets), more mid weight than 6 but more complex – possible element of reserve?
2025 Block 8 Pinot Noir MV6
A complete surprise packet again. Rich and complex, floral notes, dark cherries and brambles (whole bunch?), tight but structured, surprisingly together – reserve grade!!
2025 Mount Moriac Pinot Gris
Blend of King Valley and MM, classic gris, pear skin with a hint of blossom, very tight but can see this will have similarity to 2024.
2025 Mount Moriac Viognier
Alex has nailed this, light and crisp but with stone fruit (apricot) quite noticeable. This will not get oily or blousy. A great follow on from 2024.
2025 Mount Moriac Sauvignon Blanc
Really interesting notes of white stone fruit and citrus, lovely crisp acid but more mid palate weight than expected. Good length and can’t wait to see post filtering.
It was such a positive and instructive session.
We could already see the great progression our 2024 wines have made from previous vintages and even at such an early stage — with a lot more time to prepare and much better resources in our winemaking for this vintage — the ‘25’s are looking like another step in our evolution.
And then
TK went to Canberra, got his gong, put Albo in the picture — no doubt in his lovely, quiet intelligent way — and then sent us a report that nailed our roadmap and couldn’t have been clearer about what we are trying to do:
“The long-term goal is clear — to become a high-performing, premium, Surf Coast wine business built on quality, character, and authenticity.
“I really see our goal as a wine business is not to simply endure, but to build a wine business that earns the right to grow.”
We do too TK.
We love that our goal is your goal too now.
Thanks for the vote of confidence.
We’ll keep you posted.
See you in the vineyard.
– John
