Stargazer Palisander Pinot Noir 2023

This is the eighth Stargazer Pinot Noir to come from the Palisander Vineyard, purchased in February 2016. Located in the Tea Tree subregion of the Coal River Valley, twenty minutes northeast of Hobart, the older section of the vineyard was planted in 2002. Primarily brown dermosol on Jurassic dolerite, the plant material is combination of clones, the majority of which is G5V12 or Wadenswil. The 2022 also includes clones Abel, 115, 777 and MV6 from the blocks planted in 2017. It is all cane pruned and trained to a vertical shoot positioned canopy, and extensively shoot and fruit thinned in the spring and summer as required.

Stargazer vineyards are located in the Tea Tree subregion at the northern end of the Coal River Valley, the original 1ha vineyard on Back Tea Tree Road was planted by Norm and Jan Gangell in 2004. Pretty much half and half riesling and pinot noir, the property (eleven hectares in total) is also home to an olive grove. Samantha took over in 2016 and in late 2017 expanded the vineyard to include an additional two hectares of vines: more pinot noir (four clones), some chardonnay (another four clones) and more riesling. Stage two of the expansion was planted in October 2021: more pinot noir (two clones), gamay, pinot blanc, riesling, pinot gris and gewurztraminer.

Whilst still very new to the whole grape grower caper, Samantha and her new vineyard manager Guy Young are fervent believers in sustainable farming, biodiversity and regenerative agriculture. As part of this approach, they use sheep in the vineyard during winter for weed control, chickens free range throughout the year and scratch around for  bugs, bees contribute their pollination magic (and honey) and since 2020 we have planted over 1000 native species on the property.