Yarra Yering's 2024 Release is here – and Sarah Crowe thinks it's something special

Yarra Yering's annual release is always one of the most anticipated dates on the Australian wine calendar, and the 2024 collection is no exception. Featuring the Yarra Valley winery's flagship reds alongside its icon Carrodus Chardonnay, this year's release reflects a vintage that demanded patience and precision. 

The 2024 growing season was anything but straightforward. A particularly wet January – the heaviest recorded at Yarra Yering in more than 55 years – made for a challenging start, marking the third consecutive difficult season in the vineyard. But warm, dry conditions through February and March allowed the fruit to ripen slowly and evenly, setting the stage for an exceptional set of wines.

"It's a super vintage for these red blends," says winemaker Sarah Crowe. "We had to be very, very patient and just really wait for that ripeness to come." That patience, she explains, has delivered wines with "great intensity and flavour" while retaining the freshness and acidity that define Yarra Yering and ensures the wines will cellar wonderfully for years to come.

Yarra Yering winemaker Sarah Crowe in the vineyard.

Harvest stretched across seven weeks, beginning with chardonnay destined for sparkling base and concluding with cabernet sauvignon over the Easter long weekend. "There were a lot of weeks where we only did one pick a week," Sarah says. "We had to be very slow, methodical, particularly with the reds as the tannin ripeness is really, really important."

For Sarah, the most important decision of the season is always when to pick. That judgement comes not from spreadsheets or lab reports, but from time spent among the vines.

"The single biggest decision we make is picking," she says. "I do all the sampling in the vineyard and make that call. And it's not just getting a sample brought to the winery, but looking at the vine health and the canopy and the signals that are telling you that, ‘yes, we can leave this fruit, the canopy's great, it's going to keep photosynthesising. We don't need to panic.'"

The beauty of Yarra Yering's small, continuous vineyard is that Sarah can easily get up from her desk and walk out into any block, at any time, just to have another taste and confirm what will be picked the next day.

Yields from the 2024 vintage were moderate, at around two tonnes per acre, and delivered wines with concentration, balance and plenty of cellaring potential. Dry Red Wine No. 2, in particular, holds special significance for Sarah. "It feels like a great rendition in that it's in the style that Dr. Carrodus, our founder, used to make, but it's also got a little bit of Sarah Crowe in it as well. It treads this really lovely line between the beautiful iodine, depth and complexity that he used to make and this beautiful fruit purity and freshness."

Dry Red Wine No. 1, meanwhile, is all harmony and detail. "It just has this wonderful flowing complexity and freshness from the interlocking and the weave of those varieties together on the palate," Sarah says. "It's just really seamless."

The 2024 Carrodus Chardonnay also presented an intriguing twist. Traditionally built around fruit from only the original 1969 chardonnay plantings, this year's wine instead draws from the Crecy block as well. "It's the first Carrodus wine that we've blended from across the vineyard," Sarah says. "This year the 1969 parcel was really beautiful but it didn't quite have the line and direction that I wanted, so I had to say to myself, 'No, we have to use the blending skills that we use on our icon wines this year...this makes a better wine.' And then it really just came together so seamlessly."

The 2024 Annual Release is available for purchase from April 30, and the wines will be on tasting throughout May.

The 2024 annual release includes the Carrodus Chardonnay, Underhill Shiraz, Dry Red Wine No. 2, Agincourt Cabernet Malbec and Dry Red Wine No. 1, among others. Visitors can taste eight wines from the new release at Yarra Yering throughout May, including the opportunity to compare the Yarra Yering Chardonnay alongside the Carrodus Chardonnay.

As always, the annual release for Sarah comes with a bit of trepidation, but a lot of excitement. "I tasted through the wines with the cellar door staff on Tuesday. You get a little bit nervous walking into the room, but then the wines look really great and everybody loves them. So I think they'll have a good time pouring them." And if the scores are anything to go by, you'll certainly have a good time tasting them, too.

You can read Halliday taster Philip Rich's full reviews of the flagship wines below. And for more information or to plan your visit, head to yarrayering.com.