Stonier Pinot Noir 2025

This wine, perhaps more than any other in the range, proves that Stonier is in the best of winemaking and wine growing hands.
Buy this, cellar it, drink it. I've loved this 'standard' Stonier Pinot Noir for decades but I dare say that this is the best release that I've tried. Sheesh. It's complex, it's cohesive, it's balanced and it feels authentic, the latter both to its variety and to its region. Mostly and ultimately though it's more-ish. It's cherried and strawberried and plummy and sweet spiced, with soil or undergrowth notes interwoven. Tannin profile is top notch, and the balance between juicy drinkability and tension is so perfectly judged. Last year's releases gave an excellent insight into the uptick of Stonier but this year's releases take things up again. (95) THE WINE FRONT

A contender for the Best Value Pinot Noir of 2026. I appreciate that $45 isn't the usual price that you'd associate with value but in comparative Pinot Noir terms it qualifies. I've been tasting and drinking Stonier Pinot Noir for a very long time - 30 years-ish - and this is the best standard Stonier Pinot Noir that I can recall. It's a pearler. Its quality is so high because it's more complex than the latest round capital gains tax changes, is beautifully interwoven with tannin, is juiced up with alarmingly more-ish fruit flavour and from start to finish, more to the point, it mounts the most coherent and articulate arguments int its favour. It tastes brilliant, it tastes interesting, it feels the goods and it lingers. I couldn't be more on board. (95) CAMAPBELL MATTINSON, Mattinson.com

SPECIAL VALUE! There's volume, there's flavour, there's definition, there's delight with every sip. Wonderful aromas of florals, autumn leaves, wood spices and warm earth filter through to the mid-weighted palate. In wait, dark cherries, pips, blood orange zest, chinotto and spicy oak, with textural tannins and lively acidity. There's much more detail coming through this vintage. Nice one. (95) JANE FAULKNER, Halliday Wine Companion

Deep ruby and fragrant with aromas of baked strawberry tart and bramble over spiced cedar, dried orange peel, clove, cinnamon, and a note of forest mushroom. Plush and enveloping with bright, tangy acidity and bittersweet Campari cutting against the fruit, fine tannins woven throughout and carrying a ferrous note to the close. Quite the wine. (95) REAL REVIEW