Jane Eyre first made wines under her own, eponymous label in Australia in 2012, making three barrels of a Pinot Noir from the Mornington Peninsula. At that time, she was already making exceptional wines in Burgundy as a micro-negociant and now splits her year winemaking in both hemispheres. Australian journalist Nick Stock accurately describes Jane as “a thoughtful and determined winemaker, with clear ideas about the style of Pinot Noir she likes. She prizes fragrance and delicacy over artefact and ripeness.”
As in Burgundy, Jane buys the grapes for her Australian wines. The Mornington Peninsula Pinot Noir hails from two vineyards in Merricks, with an average age of 30 years. The wine is vinified using 20 – 25% whole bunches in an open-topped wooden fermenter and spends three weeks on the skins, with several light punch downs. Jane then ages the wine for 10 months in used French oak barrels before bottling it without fining or filtration. The resulting expression is open and inviting, with lovely aromas of cherries and orange zest.
In 2018, Jane secured some fruit from the ‘Thousand Candles’ farm in the Yarra Valley. The site, 65 kilometres northeast of Melbourne, is famed for the quality of the Pinot Noir which grows there. She uses 20% whole bunch and gentle extraction to produce a wine which is elegant and poised, defined by beautiful perfumes of red fruit and violets.
More recently she has also begun exploring the cool climate of Tasmania, sourcing Pinot Noir from two vineyards; one in the island’s northernmost wine region, Piper’s River, and the other on the iron-rich soils of the Tamar Valley. Jane uses just 10% whole bunch in her Pinot Noir and matures it for 10 months in a combination of new and used 500-litre French oak puncheons. The resulting wine has excellent purity of fruit, with pomegranate, a touch of spice and fine, persistent tannins.
