The RP Pinot Noir from By Farr is named for Robyn Pamela Farr, Gary’s wife, who has been an integral and constant presence in the winery’s development over more than forty years. Sourced from the Côte Vineyard, a recent addition to the By Farr estate that Gary and Nick Farr regard as producing their most structured and complex Pinot Noir to date, the RP represents the most concentrated and powerful expression in a lineup already noted for its intensity and site precision. The Côte Vineyard’s exposed hillsides facing north, northeast and east bring a range of light exposures and soil types that add to the wine’s layered aromatic complexity.

The Côte Vineyard sits on an exposed ridge of the Moorabool Valley and features multiple soil profiles including red to brown loam with buckshot stones on the north-facing sections, black volcanic soil over fragmenting limestone on the northeast, and grey sandy loam with ironstone on the east-facing slopes. This diversity of aspect and soil type within a single vineyard produces a wine of notable complexity, incorporating different ripening moments and flavour profiles from each of the three main faces of the slope. The 2023 vintage’s cool, wet spring followed by a long, even ripening period is ideally suited to the Côte Vineyard’s structural character, producing a RP of exceptional concentration from the smallest harvest since 2002.

The RP Pinot Noir was introduced more recently than the Sangreal and Farrside, but has rapidly established itself as a wine of considerable critical interest among By Farr enthusiasts who appreciate the Côte Vineyard’s distinctive geological and topographical character. The wine is typically the most tightly wound and backwards of the By Farr Pinot Noirs on release, requiring more patience than the perfumed Sangreal or the texturally generous Farrside. Collectors familiar with the broader By Farr range regard the RP as potentially the most age-worthy and structurally demanding of the estate’s single-vineyard Pinot Noirs.