About This Wine
The By Farr Viognier consists of a blend of fruit from two vineyards. The first is the original house block, planted in 1994, which is friable red soil over limestone leading to sandstone - similar soils to the Sangreal Pinot Noir and By Farr Chardonnay.
The second vineyard is a younger planting of unknown clones in red ironstone soil. The Viognier is a difficult variety to manage as it has a tendency to grow horizontally rather than vertically, needs a lot of water and can become sunburnt very easily.
The fruit has been picked earlier in the past few years in order to retain its natural acidity, ensuring varietal character and creating a more delicate and refined wine.
The 2025 By Farr Viognier once again shows how this variety can be in the right hands. Picked early to avoid sunburn and retain freshness, the fruit from the family vineyard has captured both flavour and minerality.
Producer Notes
A lovely perfumed, yet subtle expression of Viognier. Fresh peach and apricot flavours as a young wine, which will intensify over time. The palate is restrained, luscious and shows a ginger-flavoured freshness with underlying power and lingering aftertaste.
This is Viognier that defies the stereotypes: weighty yet refined, with a velvety texture balanced by bright acidity and a savoury, saline edge. Layers of peach, ginger spice, chalk and flint, wrapped in subtle oak and lees-derived complexity.
About the Producer
Gary Farr is one of the most iconic winemakers in Victoria, or indeed, the country. He was responsible for taking Bannockburn in Geelong to the startling heights it reached as one of the benchmark producers of Burgundian varieties in the country.
The Farr vineyards are based in the Moorabool Valley in Geelong, with a wide array of ancient soils resulting in small yields of intensely flavoured Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Shiraz and Viognier.
Specifications
- Vintage: 2025
- Grape Variety: Viognier
- Region: Geelong / Victoria / Australia
- Fermentation: Natural fermentation in barrel with all solids
- Maturation: Bottled 11 months after harvest
- Production Attributes: Foot stomped and left for two or more hours on skins; pressed, cooled and put straight into barrel with all solids; gentle stirring during the end of autumn encourages malolactic fermentation; racked, fined and filtered
- Vineyard / Geo info: Original house block planted in 1994 with friable red soil over limestone leading to sandstone; younger planting of unknown clones in red ironstone soil
