Introducing Oriele: Two wines from the Coal River Valley

The first Oriele releases have arrived, complementing our established Auburn wines in the Single Vineyard range and bringing the contrasting expressions of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Tasmania’s Coal River and Tamar Valleys into focus.

Oriele is our top single-vineyard range from the southern Tasmanian site.

The first two wines, a 2025 Pinot Noir and 2025 Chardonnay, were made from small parcels selected for their detail, structure and ability to develop with time.

The 2025 season began early. Warm, dry conditions accelerated ripening and brought harvest forward, while giving the fruit depth and concentration. Both varieties
were picked by hand, then handled in small batches.

These wines are still young.

The Pinot Noir already shows energy and aromatic lift, while the Chardonnay is more
tightly held, with its texture and breadth beginning to emerge.

2025 Oriele Pinot Noir

Pinot Noir from the Coal River Valley is often defined by fragrance, fine structure and a lightness that does not come at the expense of flavour.

Those qualities are clear in the 2025 Oriele Pinot Noir.

The fruit was hand-picked and sorted into small, open-top fermenters. A substantial
portion of whole bunches was included to build structure and aromatic complexity without adding unnecessary weight.

Fermentation was managed gently. After two weeks on skins, the free-run wine was drained by gravity and transferred to a combination of new and seasoned French oak. It completed malolactic fermentation in barrel and matured for ten months before the strongest components were selected for the final blend.

The wine opens with earthy red berries, wild fruit and a briary edge. It is graceful and
fine-boned, with gentle grip and clear forward movement. There is concentration from the warm, dry season, but the wine remains lifted and almost weightless.

Our winemakers Ockie Myburg and Sara Dooley, cracked a bottle together and shared their process around the building of the Oriele range.

“The character that jumps out of the glass for me, every time I smell this wine is a beetroot-y, earthy sort of character; it’s very savory,” Ockie says. “It is quite a complex wine, and I think this is a wine that you have to savour in the glass. It is one that you can sit and think about.”

2025 Oriele Chardonnay

The 2025 Oriele Chardonnay is a blend of Dijon clone 95 and Penfolds clone 58.

The grapes were picked by hand in mid-March and gently pressed as whole bunches. The free-run juice was settled overnight, then racked with a small amount of light lees to build texture and palate weight.

The juice was transferred to French oak barriques, 15 per cent of which were new, for a slow wild fermentation. Regular stirring brought the lees back into suspension during maturation. After eleven months in barrel, the most detailed and complete parcels were selected for the final wine.

At this early stage, the Chardonnay is scented, pure and tightly composed. Citrus leads the wine, with glazed lemon, restrained vanilla from the oak and a fine pithy edge. It begins slender and energetic, then gradually reveals more substance and shape.

It is a young wine with room to expand. The acidity and structure are already in place; the breadth will come with time.

“For me, I can really see and smell a lot of delicacy, a bit more citrus, and minerality
running through the wine. But when you taste it on the palette dense and there’s enough sort of fleshiness and weight,” Ockie says. “I think the oak on this wine, which is about 15 per cent neo oak, it really gives the wine a little bit of a cradle which really drives it through the mid palette.”

One vineyard, two distinct wines

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay respond differently to the Coal River Valley, but these
releases share a common line: fragrance, natural freshness and detail without excess.

The winemaking supports those qualities rather than covering them. Fruit was picked
by hand. Parcels were fermented separately. Oak was used with restraint. Movement
through the winery was kept gentle, including gravity-draining the Pinot Noir and
whole-bunch pressing the Chardonnay.

Oriele gives us a closer view of this vineyard and what it can produce in a particular
season. The 2025 wines mark the beginning of that work: two closely selected wines
from an early, dry vintage, made with patience and a light hand.

The 2025 Oriele Pinot Noir and Chardonnay are now available in limited quantities.