We Review Yarra Yerring's Greatest Hits, Including The Dry Red Wine No. 1, Dry Red Wine No. 3, Underhill Shiraz, Dry White Wine No. 2, Crêcy Chardonnay and Waterloo Pinot Noir.

 

 

For all the accolades and the cult following enjoyed by Yarra Yering Wine Estate in Victoria’s Yarra Valley, its most celebrated wine labels have decidedly unassuming names: Dry Red Wine No. 1 & Dry Red Wine No. 2.

Founded in 1969 by the “brilliant”, “eccentric” and “impossible to dislike” Dr Bailey Carrodus, the Victorian estate is credited by many for being the first to spark the revival of serious winemaking in Yarra Valley in over a hundred and twenty years – since the short-lived Yarra Valley wine boom of the mid 19^th century. The estate has been best known for its long-lived Cabernet and Shiraz-led red blends since its first commercial vintage in 1973, said to delight wine lovers after years of bottle aging in the cellar.

 

Dr Bailey Carrodus, the founder of Yarra Yering.

 

By 1990, its wines had been cited in the Langton’s Classification, the closest thing Australia has to a Bordeaux-style ranking of its finest wines. The winery remains firmly at the top of mind for critics today – in 2022, Yarra Yering became the first producer in history to win double awards of “Winery of the Year” and “Wine of the Year” in Australia’s Halliday Wine Companion awards – the nation’s most influential reference to the wine scene.

We recently had the opportunity to join a tasting led by Sarah Crowe – Yarra Yering’s current Winemaker and General Manager – in Singapore with importer Wine Culture. (You can find these incredible wines on Wine Culture's retail website.)

 

 

To understand how Yarra Yering came to be, we’ll take a look beyond these numbers, at the valley that surrounds the estate, the cool-warm slopes where their grapes grow, and the “eccentric” scientist who planted the vineyards as part of his personal campaign to, “civilise” Australian drinking culture of the 1960s.

The cool-warm slopes of Yarra Valley

Yarra Valley lies east of Melbourne about an hour’s drive from the city, in the south-eastern Australian state of Victoria.

About two centuries ago, there was a booming wine industry here before the modern enthusiasm that Yarra Yering helped usher in came about. Vines were first planted around the 1830s and the industry expanded before declining when agricultural economics changed, with much of the land reverting to use for livestock grazing. It took about 130 years before the land returned to grapes in the 1960s, with Yarra Yering being part of that revival.

 

 

This is a classified as a cool climate region, with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir among its principal grapes. However, a cool climate region could still have places warm enough to ripen Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz.

Yarra Yering itself sits within a rural locality called Gruyere, on a north-facing slope in the foothills of the Warramate Hills; in the Southern Hemisphere, north-facing slopes are exposed to more sun. As alluded, this is a warmer site within the cool Yarra Valley region. Daytime warmth helps Cabernet and Shiraz ripen, while the fall in temperature helps the fruit retain acidity – the fruit offers a combination of ripe tannins alongside sufficient acidic freshness.

 

 

The vineyard is dry-grown, meaning that the vines receive no irrigation apart from rainfall. At the same time , the estate’s grey silty clay loam contains bands of gravel that ensure quick drainage – a critical requirement for high quality, concentrated berries.

Dr Carrodus chose this site precisely for its ideal drainage, sun exposure and position above the frost-prone valley floor.

The good doctor looking to raise Australian drinking culture

It’s worth noting that Yarra Yerring was founded during an era when people were impatiently waiting for Australia’s temperance movement to slowly unwind.

The West’s temperance movement dated back to the First World War when strict laws were introduced to force pubs to close by 6 o’clock – partly as a wartime austerity measure (to ensure the home front had sober and disciplined citizens).

 

(Source: Los Angeles Public Library)

 

It was striking how long the “6 o’clock closing” laws remained despite both World Wars moving into the rear-view mirror and societal attitudes towards Christian Temperance lightening up. By the 1950s, the majority of Australian states have gradually repealed their “6 o’clock closing” laws. However, Victoria, where Dr Carrodus resided, kept its law until February 1966.

This led to the persistence of a strange daily ritual: after a workday ended at 5 pm, hordes of men would rush to the nearest bar looking to cram down as many beers as physically possible before the clock struck 6. That frantic hour was known as the “6 o’clock swill”.

 

 

At the same time, the government was cracking down citizens’ practice of “backyard winemaking” – a practice mainly kept alive by first generation European immigrants.

This state of affairs offended Dr Carrodus so much, he was compelled to write an open letter to a Melbourne newspaper criticising the government’s handling of alcohol regulation. In Dr Carrodus’ letter, he persuasively argued that the government’s clumsy regulations were leading to perverse outcomes, where Australian drinking culture was essentially built around beer-swilling drunkenness between 5 and 6 o’clock. A culture built around moderate, wine-oriented appreciation would be much preferable, argued the doctor.

 

 

But the content of the letter wasn’t as remarkable as path that it led to. A young lawyer and vineyard owner named Reg Egan came across the open letter, and immediately invited Dr Carrodus to lunch.

Their meeting turned into a friendship, then a decision to enter a winemaking venture by acquiring some 12 hectares of land. While Egan later exited the partnership, he and Dr Carrodus remained livelong friends. Dr Carrodus stayed on to make good of his campaign to elevate Australian wine culture, and build what would become Yarra Yering.

Small batches and numbered blends

There is an ongoing joke that almost all of Australia’s biggest names in wine were founded by medical doctors. Dr Carrodus’ is the outlier – he was an actual doctor of the vines. He had worked in wine research, studied and taught oenology, and completed a PhD in Botany in Oxford University.

 

 

He planted most of the original vineyard in 1969, which led to the first commercial vintages of Dry Red No. 1 and Dry Red No. 2 – respectively named literally after a Bordeaux-inspired “Block One” where Cabernet Sauvignon grew with Merlot and a little Malbec, and Rhône-inspired “Block Two” that grew Shiraz and Marsanne. While these were the primary varieties, Dr Carrodus experimented with more and more varieties in the Yarra Valley terroir, eventually creating a working library of classic French varieties, including Pinot Noir and a range of white varieties such as Chardonnay, Sémillon, Sauvignon Blanc, and Viognier.

His choice of grapes continued to widen. In 1990 he planted Portuguese varieties. By the first vintage from those vines in 1996, he was making both a fortified wine and the dry blend that became Dry Red Wine No. 3.

 

 

Inside the winery, Dr Carrodus worked on manageable scales. His open-top fermenters hold about half a tonne of grapes each, the smaller size allowing for separate batches to be handled individually. During fermentation, grape skins are pushed into the liquid to extract colour and tannins by hand, a process called plunging. The estate today still uses this gentle hands-on approach.

Dr Carrodus never cared much for self-promotion, never entering his wines in competitions, and apparently took the view that he should simply let the wines speak for themselves. He was also famously guarded about his own methods – some importers have noted that they couldn’t get a straight answer out of him about the exact blend percentages of his wines.

The reputation arrived nonetheless. By 1990, his wines became formally ranked as some of Australia’s finest wines in the Langton’s Classification. Each year, enthusiasts made the trip to Gruyere for bottles of No.1 or No.2 before the allocation ran out.

 

 

From what little is known of Dr Carrodus’s private life, he never married and was intensely private. One of the very few personal marks that he left on Yarra Yering is the spay of laurel leaves on the otherwise austere bottle labels to remember his long-term partner, Laurel, who passed on early in the life of his estate.

Taking over a winery with a style to preserve

Shortly after Carrodus’s death in 2008, the estate changed hands in 2009, passing to new owners who have been admirers of Yarra Yering. Carrodus’s successors continue making these numbered wines using the same equipment and vines.

When Sarah Crowe took over the reins, her goal became to retain the fragrance and freshness she associates with the vineyard, and managing the wine’s tannins for pairing alongside food, even in the wines intended for long life.

 

 

All the fruit is now hand-harvested and sorted, with the sorting line arranged for whole bunches or individual berries according to wine label. The intention is to manage bitterness and unnecessary astringency while retaining tannins from sound grapes.

While gentle hand-plunging still happens with the fermenters, different grapes receive particular treatment now. For instance, for the Dry Red No.1, they could crush the Cabernet for structure, while keeping berries of Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot intact during fermentation for fragrance and weight.

To further improve fruit purity, adjustments were made to the proportion of new French oak- reducing it to abut 40% of new oak for the No.1 (with a 15-month maturation period) after the 2014 vintage.

The Underhill Shiraz – the estate’s single variety wine was adjusted to include more whole bunches – with stems still attached during fermentation. This improves fragrance and adds a supple texture. Most of the wine is matured in larger vessels such as the 500-litre puncheon to preserve the Underhill Shiraz’s fruit and freshness.

A freshness-led approach also applies to the estate’s white wines. The Dry Wine No.2 blend (Marsanne-led) is fermented in ceramic eggs to balance the varieties’ generous texture with drier finish.

 

 

The current team made an observation that modern consumers preferred earlier-drinking wines, especially if they were to appeal to consumers who lack the space or time to cellar bottles for years. This led Sarah and the winemaking team to develop several new cuvées designed to be enjoyed sooner, including the Crécy Chardonnay and Waterloo Pinot Noir, selected from slightly riper parcels to emphasise the fruit.

These were named after the actual vineyard sections, originally named by Dr Carrodus who named them after battle names such as the 1346 Battle of Crécy and the 1815 Battle of Waterloo where the English defeated the French.

 

 

Here’s our experience tasting six Yarra Yering wines with Sarah and Wine Culture, with the familiar numbered reds together with newer wines made for earlier drinking.

Wine Review: Yarra Yering Dry White Wine No. 2

Blend of 46% Marsanne, 30% Roussanne, 16% Grenache Blanc, 8% Viognier, aged in French oak barrels and ceramic eggs for 10 months. 2024 vintage.

 

 

This is a white Marsanne and Roussanne-dominant blend fermented in ceramic eggs to create a generous texture with a drier grippy finish.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Light straw.

Aroma: Clean, citrusy and really fresh. Opens with citrus and white florals up top, leading into juicy orchard and bright stone fruits beneath – white peaches, nectarines, apricots and a touch of pink guava. A core of citrus sweetness, candied lemon, mandarin peels, a layer of beeswax, before offering up light notes of cereal grains, toasted rice and leesy richness. Finally, a rather mineral and saline floor of wet stone and oyster shells. A touch of buttered toast alongside a bit more white florals.

Taste: Medium bodied with a rounded, lightly waxy texture. It has a fresh core of pulpy citrus and gooseberries. Develops into nectarines and slightly green apricots. The acidity is really rounded and softened. Along with fruits we have a creamy lactic band of Greek yoghurt with sliced muscat. Seamlessly it moves into minerality with chalk and salinity below. Some lemon and grapefruit pith.

Finish: Medium in length. Fading citrus pith with a continued mineral influence. Receding yoghurt tanginess.

My Thoughts

This is a really easy going opener for the flight. It’s fresh, rounded, thoroughly drinkable – built on precisely ripe (and perhaps slightly green) fruits for pervading freshness and definition, very soft and accessible acidity and a lasting mineral spine.

While the nose already promises high-toned freshness, the most delightful aspect of this wine for me is in its palate and texture. It’s rounder and fleshier than initially imagined, with a considerably substantial waxy texture for a cool climate white.

Wine Review: Yarra Yering Crécy Chardonnay

Chardonnay exclusively, aged in French oak (30% new) for 14 months, 2024 vintage.

 

 

Created by Sarah’s team as a more open, earlier-drinking Chardonnay, fruit was picked from riper parcels of Dr Carrodus’s “Crécy” vineyard block, and a lower proportion of new oak was used. The wine was also encouraged to undergo malolactic fermentation to soften its acidity.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Straw.

Aroma: Significantly richer with fleshy fruits over a rocky stony frame. This is also really fresh but with much richer, warmer notes. Opens with a lifted character of expressed lemon peels, lime leaves and grape fruit wedges, leading into a generous core of honey and stone fruits – ripe apricot, nectarine and red plums. Beneath that, I have buttered toast and roasted cashew nuts. Develops into really prominent minerality built around granite, stone dust and sea salt.

Taste: Ripe, rich and generous with a really supple texture. The palate is medium bodied. It opens once again with citrus and stone fruit leading from the nose – grapefruit pith and bitter lemon, evolving into smooth butter and dairy cream before a clean toasted rice, Japanese dashi stock, raw dough and savoury roasted cashew register. The acidity resolves fully here. Running underneath that is some salinity and wet rocks.

Finish: Long, clean, creamy, lightly oxidative. Lemon rinds continued with savoury brothy influences, a long creaminess with butter shortbread, toasted nuts and wet rocks.

My Thoughts

This is a rich and generous Chardonnay that retains plenty of cool climate freshness and light-footedness.

It is also really rounded, nuanced and drinkable just like the Dry White No. 2, but where the Dry White No. 2 was most lifted and citrus-driven, this is significantly broader, riper, more stone-fruit driven and denser. The perfume is generous, there are tons of high-definition ripe fruits, but it offers fruit without sweetness, layered with a nice prominent mineral tension. There’s significant complexity here with fruits, oak and acidity all in the right proportions.

Wine Review: Yarra Yering Waterloo Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir exclusively, aged in French oak barrels for 10 months. 2024 vintage.

 

 

Also created for earlier enjoyment by Sarah’s team from the estate’s slightly newer Pinot plantings from the “Waterloo” section, this is fermented using intact fruit.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Cranberry juice.

Aroma: Very pretty, with bright berries up to and dry savoury nuances supporting, and very measured acidity. Leads with cranberries, raspberries, pomegranate, haw berries with crushed violets and rose petal perfume. Light notes of brambles. More florals of roses and chamomile, with some earthiness of a light bitter-herbal and savoury dimension – chinotto, star anise, mint, sage and cedar.

Taste: Open but very delicate. It has a medium-plus body with a lightly velvety texture. Opens with much of the same red fruits on the nose – raspberries, haw berries and pomegranate – layered with warm cacao powder and espresso. Savoury wood spices gradually take over. Tannins are present but fine and very softly laced. The acidity is bright but measured, perhaps softened by the malolactic fermentation.

Finish: Medium length, fine and gently persistent. Light blue plums as the tannins settle. It has some smooth baking spices, some cinnamon, nutmeg moving into dry oak.

My Thoughts

This is the prettiest red of the flight. Bright, immediately generous, accessible, and very nuanced. We should remark that the core of it, much of the clear primary fruit focus here is not surprising given that the “Waterloo” parcel comes from comparatively younger blocks of Pinot Noir vines.

It’s built around the clarity of bright red fruits, well-measured acidity, a touch of sweet oak spices and some lovely evocative dark florals. There is also sufficient acidity to lift its profile, making this a solid wine for dinner pairings.

Wine Review: Yarra Yering Dry Red Wine No. 3

Blend of 38% Touriga Nacional, 30% Tinta Cão, 10% Tinta Roriz, 10% Tinta Amarela, 6% Alvarelhão, 6% Sousão, aged in old oak barrels for 10 months. 2022 vintage.

 

 

This was originally created by Dr Carrodus from his Portuguese plantings in 1996. Sarah’s team handles the fruit gently as she would the Pinot Noir, keeping more berries intact to preserve fragrance and fruit alongside their substantial tannins, including doing a brief foot-treading for gentler extraction – the idea is to build sufficient weight on the palate without drawing too much tannins out.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep ruby.

Aroma: Dark, musky, earthy with a floral perfume. It opens with tons of immediate dark fruits – black plums, dark cherries and cassis with a really gamey and musky component to it, with just-as-present violets and potpourri. More dark fruits – satsuma plums, cassis and dark cherries laced with warm spices – cinnamon, liquorice and pepper seamlessly melding into tobacco ribbons, fresh tilled soil, cured dark meats (bresola) and dark chocolate.

Taste: Dense, polished and savoury. It offers a full palate, a core of dark and red fruits coming together – dark cherries, plums, figs, raspberries – with warm Christmas spices unfolding in parallel – cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cacao. Acidity is held in abeyance, the tannins are polished and chewy. There’s also a light meaty savoury undercurrent of bloody lamb chops and iron filings.

Finish: Long, spiced and warm. A minor touch of crunchy red fruits. Savoury meatiness with fading cacao and plum skins. A touch of cracked black pepper and anise in the far end.

My Thoughts

This is superbly plush and polished. Tannins are nearly resolved, and it comes with impressive fruit concentration, floral lift and savoury complexity.

For those familiar with Portuguese dry Douro wines, this Australian cool-climate reinterpretation brings out a familiar structure and references but with a well calibrated acidity, liveliness and perfume. It is also significantly more complex than one might expect at this age – offering up savoury tertiary notes of leather, gaminess and earthiness that you only tend to see with bottles with some age on them, or old-vine blends.

This is fully drinkable at 4 years of bottle aging, but considering the depth of its tannins, this has potential to evolve for many more years in the cellar.

Wine Review: Yarra Yering Underhill Shiraz

Shiraz exclusively, all from a single block of vines planted in 1973, aged in 3,500-litre foudre and 500-litre puncheons for 12 months. 2019 vintage.

 

 

While the estate’s iconic Dry Red Wine No. 2 is a Rhône-style Shiraz-dominant blend of the estate, the Underhill Shiraz narrows the focus to just one block and one variety.

As mentioned, whole bunches are used and the while is subject to gentler élevage. Sarah described how the wine is first fermented in a large upright wooden tank. The wine is then matured in a combination of the same large wooden tank and 500-litre puncheons. This is intended to preserve the fruit and freshness.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Dark ruby.

Aroma: Full of dark fruits and meatiness. Opens immediately perfumed – dark roses, potpourri beckoning into a dark fruit core of black plums, cassis and dark cherries seasoned with crack black pepper and cloves. Richer more woodsy spices come through with cinnamon, cloves and some ginseng, and then an intriguing savoury meatiness that begins to consume the fruit – roasted lamb, iron filings, toasted tobacco ribbons and dark chocolate. A bit of stone dust.

Taste: Medium bodied and fine-boned. Initially a little reticent, it gradually opens with fresh dark fruits, a growing concentrated core of dark cherries, dark plums and cassis. Coffee, cocoa powder and cloves warm the mid-palate, while a lightly acidic backbone holds and retains the freshness of the dark fruit. Velvety tannins gradually assert itself, bringing out more plum skins, hawthorn and spice.

Finish: Very long, clean and chalky. Figs and more on the plum skins here, joined by dry savoury spices; pepper, cloves and anise. A lightly chalky texture as the tannin settles.

My Thoughts

This is really elegant and evocative stuff – about as Northern Rhône as an Australian Shiraz could get!

While the typical warm climate Australian Shiraz would lead one to expect heavier ripeness, primary dark fruits, chocolate and oak, this wine is much finer bodied and nuanced, giving us evocative nuances like pepper, roasted meat and iron.

And while this is the most mature of the wines in this flight, it also interestingly appears to be the most restrained. Its character takes a little bit of patience to reveal itself, and it seems to have a preference for perfume and spice over immediate fruit or oak generosity.

Of the entire flight, this also appears to show the greatest long-term cellaring potential. It is already enjoyable now, but with its acidic backbone and tannin level, it still feels like it has a lot more to offer. I can see this developing beautifully over another half-decade or longer.

Wine Review: Yarra Yering Dry Red Wine No. 1

Blend of 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 24% Merlot, 11% Malbec, 5% Petit Verdot. Aged in French oak (40% new) for 15 months. 2021 vintage.

 

 

Yarra Yering’s Dry Red Wine No. 1 is the estate’s most iconic wine with the greatest longevity, and one that has won numerous awards. The flagship blend leads with Cabernet Sauvignon structure, with Merlot for fullness, Malbec for freshness and Petit Verdot for fragrance.

As mentioned earlier, this is made by crushing Cabernet for structure, while keeping berries of Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot intact during fermentation to add fragrance and weight.

Sarah had also adjusted the new oak percentage down to 40% to ensure clearer fruit.

Tasting Notes

Colour: Deep garnet.

Aroma: Powerful, layered and delightfully fresh for a Bordeaux-style Cabernet blend. Great depths of cassis and dark cherry sweetness lead with a growing core of dark berry sweetness (mulberries and black berries) and even some red apples. Seamlessly integrated with some greenness and earthy-herbal layers, green bell peppers, bay leaves, dried herbs, cinnamon, nutmeg, and then cedar, tobacco ribbons and woodland notes. The layering is complete with graphite and iron filings.

Taste: Densely fruited but with elegant freshness. It’s full and plush in texture – very Merlot-driven – opening with a dark fruit core of plums, cassis, dark cherries, black and blue berries, with touch of tart wild strawberry beside it. The tannins are velvety and fine-grained. Growing notes of fruited sweetness, with brambles, apples, hawthorn and a touch of orange peel. It gradually extends out into dry aromatic oak, agarwood, a touch of incense and new leather. It is a weighty wine but a precisely calibrated acidic backbone preserves its freshness at all times.

Finish: Very long, mineral, and lightly toasty. Dryness tightens as tannins settle, and we see some final embers of tertiary notes. Fading cassis, cedar and cacao powder over a mineral thread of graphite and gravel.

My Thoughts

This is one of the most complex and nuanced Cabernet blends we’ve seen coming out from Australia.

This vintage of the Yarra Yering Dry Red No. 1 is an exceptionally complete wine that will convince you of Dr Carrodus’s original thesis that the Yarra Valley could produce serious Cabernet blends built on finesse rather than weight.

This is powerful, layered and full of tertiary notes to uncover, and yet unlike other Australian Cabernet blends, or indeed many Bordeaux producers, there’s a bit more elegance in the way it preserves a thread of freshness within intensity at all times. Tannins are rich but velvety. Acidity is precise enough to make itself known without overstaying its welcome.

Although we haven’t yet entered the ideal drinking window for this wine (we estimate it to really sing in about another 5 to 8 years), on this showing, it has already given everything needed to impress us.

 

@CharsiuCharlie