Before Bass Phillip, before Giaconda, before Coldstream Hills and most of its neighbours in the Yarra Valley, before the Mornington Peninsula and the Adelaide Hills had been even linked with pinot noir, an ambitious project had been initiated on parched and undulating land north of Geelong with an ambition of making world-class pinot noir. Its early success was phenomenal by the standards of the time as winemaker Gary Farr stretched the limits of what might be achieved with Australian pinot. His early wines were powerfully constructed and deeply flavoured and if they lacked the finesse of world class pinot they still showed he was onto something special. No longer the only genuine contender as a maker of world-class pinot noir in Australia, Bannockburn has steadily refined its style, turning the corner in 1988 with almost an unbroken series of wines which since that vintage consistently reflect Farr’s expectations of style, longevity and consistency. As a group they would take some beating in this country. But Farr was actually trying to beat them himself. Not by taking out from the principal Bannockburn pinot crop a parcel or selection of best barrels for a ‘Special’ or ‘Reserve’ label. Instead, in 1984 Farr developed a tiny 1.3 ha vineyard within a vineyard of close-planted pinot noir vines of 4 foot by four foot spacing whose crop would be regulated to stay within rough Premier Cru limits of 45 hl/ha. The vineyard is called ‘Serre’, French for close, or compact. Handmade with traditional techniques, Serre has always been intended as a wine for those who would understand it. It’s an uncompromising cellar style, very firm in its structure but which, as the currently available 1994 vintage is beginning to show, eventually and almost reluctantly opens up with time. Gary Farr has never made a song and dance about Serre, which he’s hardly even shown to the wine media. Typically, Farr appears irreverently comfortable not caring either way if other people don’t like it, just as long as he does. Although he had toyed with three wines beforehand, its first commercial release was from 1990, introduced to the market at around five years of age and topping the pricing scales around the hundred dollar mark, the first Australian pinot noir to approach that level. As you might expect with a wine of these expectations and from a maker genuinely prepared to back his thoughts with actions, it’s taken a little time for Serre to settle. Its debut 1990 vintage has always expressed some vegetative influences, presumably from the high level of whole bunch ferment and stalk contact it received, and while it will never approach the levels of 1994 or beyond, it is showing signs of improvement. 1991 produced an excessively stalky wine and I haven’t tasted the 1993 since a Wine Magazine tasting two years ago, when it was entering a flat stage between a promising youth and a complex future. Farr accidently racked the 1992 Serre in with the Bannockburn Pinot Noir so there was no release. But he does remember it fondly. And with the 1994 Serre the vineyard came into its own.The 1995 edition is classy but more reserved and less concentrated, while brilliant releases from 1996 and 1997 continue the lineage. Be warned: Serre is not for everyone. It is deliberately expensive and exclusive. It’s not for those who enjoy their pinot noirs fine, supple, soft and sweet, nor is it for those without the patience to wait for their wines. Even though it is sold as a mature wine it is certainly not ready at release. Serre is irrestistably set on a course to justifiable stardom, no matter how much Farr may eschew the attention it creates for him. If and when Serre makes the auction house ‘A’ lists and becomes traded as a commodity like so many great wines nobody ever drinks any more, you’ll never be able to touch it. So get in early, get on the mailing list and do whatever is required to get your allocation.
