Wine with Meg + Mel
The fun + frank podcast which helps you navigate the world of wine. Hosted by Australia's first female Master of Wine Meg Brodtmann, and self-titled Master of Sabrage Mel Gilcrist.
Wine with Meg + Mel
Can you taste where a Pinot comes from? We put Mornington, Yarra Valley and Tasmanian Pinot Noir to the test to see if regional differences really are perceptible.
Think all Pinot Noir is just “light red”? Three glasses say otherwise. We set up a controlled taste test with Handpicked’s single-vineyard Pinot from Tasmania, Mornington Peninsula, and the Yarra Valley to hear terroir speak without the noise of wildly different winemaking. The result is a crisp, side-by-side sensory map of Australian Pinot: an elegant, hibiscus-and-cranberry whisper from Tassie; a plush, red-cherry surge with velvet tannins from Mornington; and a taut, sour-cherry line with tomato leaf and structure from Yarra.
We start by framing why place matters—cool climates, longer hang time, and how flavour precursors accumulate—and then tackle the GI reality that Tasmania is still labelled under a single umbrella despite its diverse pockets like Coal River and Tamar. Keeping producer and intent constant at the $90 tier lets texture, aroma, and tannin shape become the guideposts. Along the way, we share the practical stuff: which dishes sing with each style (think Peking duck pancakes, confit duck, and crisp-skinned poultry), how to build an affordable group tasting night that outperforms a wine bar tab, and why premium, site-first winemaking doesn’t have to feel intimidating when you know what to expect in the glass.
There’s levity, too—a cheeky “Am I A Wine Wanker?” moment on bringing your own glass to a BYO—and genuine listener love for a tasting club that pairs our episodes with themed snacks. The biggest takeaway? Regionality in Australian Pinot isn’t a slogan; it’s visible in the colour, audible in the nose, and tactile in the tannin. Next, we zoom further to sub-regions to see if the fine grain holds up.
If you enjoy thoughtful tastings with real-world tips, hit follow, share this with your wine-curious mates, and leave a quick review—then tell us which region won your glass tonight.
Follow us on instagram @winewithmegandmel
Hi, and welcome to Wine with Megan Malware here to help you navigate the world of wine. I'm Melbourne Chris Drama, Master of Wine Meg Rotman. And thank God, we're back in the studio today. So hopefully we sound lovely.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, we will sound better. But we were doing everything on the fly last week with the with your brilliant idea that you came up with very quickly.
SPEAKER_01:It took me six hours to edit that. So everyone, if you have not listened to last week's episode, please, for the love of God, listen to it.
SPEAKER_00:Just so that Mel can feel just it sounded really good.
SPEAKER_01:It was a good episode though, wasn't it?
SPEAKER_00:It was long, you could have cut it into two, made our lives easier.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I could have.
SPEAKER_00:After six hours of interviewing, she was like, fuck you.
SPEAKER_01:But no, it was like um going through like what is even the difference between Langdon's and Halliday and Real Review and all those and and how to interpret what they tell you. But um today we are going to revisit like, is there a difference between Pinanoir in different regions? And the reason we're revisiting it is because I realized that um we had three from the same producer from three regions, so it just seemed like a good opportunity to see if we could tell the difference.
SPEAKER_00:Perfect. And then you had a brilliant idea for next week.
SPEAKER_01:Well, then next week we are going to be like, okay, so sub-regional. Regions are one thing. Can we tell Yara from Mornington? But it's like, okay, all these wineries, some not all of them, but some of the top ones specialise in sub-regionality, and they reckon that there is a real big difference between up the hill and down the hill, and we're like, okay, let's do that. In and out more or later. Yep. Yeah. Great.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, so first, Meg, fun fact. Fun fact. Um, I don't know if you've been reading this back and forth with the UN lately. Um the sorry, not the not the UN, it's not politics, it's not politics, it's a pronunciation. With um the World Health Organization about ke you know, putting these statements that alcohol is going to kill you basically and everything. Anyway, I'm pleased to announce that they have softened their stance and they're just saying the consumption of alcohol can be harmful. So, because uh the brewers, the big international brewers really push back on it. Yeah. Um, the spirits people, so Diaggio and everyone just said, though, this is really ridiculous. Because I think it basically said you will get cancer if you have a drink. Or so it was something really bad. Yeah, it was yeah, yeah. Um and they equ equated it to smoking that there's no safe level. And there is numerous studies showing that there is moderate consumption is okay. So I would just I was pleased when I read that that they are softening their stance on it, and it's just gonna be a sort of a generic. I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_01:That is that is really good.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:Um now for our next thing today, we are revisiting our M I a Wine Wanker. Okay. And they've been so excited to get lots of um like messages, and we got comments on the post I put up about it, so we're gonna start with this one. Um This person has proposed this. They bring their own wine glass to BY Own restaurants. Are they a wine wanker?
SPEAKER_00:Look, a little they bring their own glass to BYO restaurants, so they take their own wine, I'm assuming, and their own glass. Seriously? Yes, because in my my to my mind, most BY re B O R BYO restaurants can't speak today, uh sort of those cheap and cheerful local. They do have thick glasses, but they're cheap and cheerful. But so you take a cheap and cheerful wine that you are drinking and you're not thinking about. I mean, uh, we've drunk wine out of glass tumblers, you know, we've drunk it out of coffee cups before. So I do think it's a little bit um tossy. But if you're taking a really nice bottle of wine and you think it's going to make a difference to your enjoyment in a restaurant where there's a whole heap of food smells going on.
SPEAKER_01:That's what I was also thinking. I was like, B weo, are you all are you opening something really good to have with your honey chicken?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I know. You're Australian Chinese, not you not your Chinese Chinese, you're Australian Chinese. Yeah, but look, if you want to, that's fine. I just hope you take it home and wash it yourself. Oh, god, yeah. And don't expect them to clean it and return it to you clean.
SPEAKER_01:I agree, you are a wine wanker. But I kind of love it as well, and I think that's gonna be my response to a lot of these, not gonna lie. Um, I would really respect it. Now, like before we get into it, the last thing I want to talk about is oh my god, this person that you ran into at James Doncaster or something. Eastland. Eastland. I just couldn't believe you told me about him. But then like his sent through to the podcast, they have this full wine tasting group of 20 people who sit around and legit listen to our podcast and just taste all the wines and just sit there drinking with us.
SPEAKER_00:It's so cute. And coming out, like I said, I love the way they have the little snacks that they're gonna be having and everything. So they've they had was it Peking Duck Pancakes because it was Pinot? Yeah, yeah, it's pretty cool. It's a great way to spend an evening with your mates in real life. Yes, you know, rather than just sitting at home by yourself and into the podcast. What fun I think we should go.
SPEAKER_01:Um, and I loved I loved getting it. So like send us pictures and stuff.
SPEAKER_00:Just looking at a very unattractive photo.
SPEAKER_01:A nice screenshot of Meg on our page. But I loved getting um just like seeing where you are and how you listen to the pod. So like send us those, please. And make sure you check out on the Instagram that group, it's awesome. When I told Tom, I was like, Tom, you have to look at this, my husband. He looked at and goes, Oh my god, that's such a good idea. We should do that. And I was like, but I do the podcast. I'm here. I would be there in real life. Do you really want to put me on the speakers when I would be there? So I don't know, maybe that's um maybe that's a reflection on how much he trusts me versus you.
SPEAKER_00:But uh true, true, true, true. But you'd be interrupting and speaking over me anyway if you did that. So it became the Mel and Mel podcast, but in real life.
SPEAKER_01:That's true. I wouldn't be able to just sit there and listen to myself. I'd had to butt in. Anyway, let's get into it. We have three wines to get through. Meg, while we're pouring, why don't you say um what you th you expect before we go into tasting these three regions of Pinot?
SPEAKER_00:All the wines are from hand picked. Are they all 2022?
SPEAKER_01:23, 23. One is 2022.
SPEAKER_00:22. We've got Tasmania, Mornington, and Yara. Is that correct?
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:So Tasmania for me tends to be lighter in colour. So that's the first thing I notice about Tasmanian um Pinot's. They tend to be lighter, and I don't know whether that's to do with vag vage, I cannot speak. Vine age, because they they're probably not at the 30 years in a lot of the vineyards, or whether it's um to do with the style of wine making that they do, but they tend to be lighter in colour. They tend to, for me, I get this. Have you ever had that hibiscus tea or hibiscus cordial, like at Middle Eastern? You would have had it at Maha at some point. Yeah. It has this hibiscus character to it that I get. Um and definite cranberry, it's really on the light red fruit, berry fruit characteristic. Whereas when you're more moving into um Mornington, that Mornington very always these incredibly plush um tannins with this more riper red fruit character. And I get almost a not a dusty chalkiness to the smell. It's like a almost an earthy, there's an earthiness about Mornington. Whereas Yarrow, depending on where it is, and we've got Highbrow Hill Vineyard in the Arrow Valley from Handpicked, and the lower Yarrow is more that sort of red and black cherry, cranberry, raspberry, very rarely strawberry. But if you move to the upper yarrow, there's a real distinct violet-y perfume.
SPEAKER_01:You're already talking sub-regions. Do you know what's funny? Yeah, sorry. You just described Tasmania as a one place. Like Tasmania's huge, but it's not a good one.
SPEAKER_00:It only has one, but the thing is, it only has one official GI. So people do put Coal River on it, but they can't put that. That's why I have to say Tasmania, because if people are buying Tasmania.
SPEAKER_01:Well, we know it's probably from Coal River.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, exactly. But they I thought there was a couple of places. No. It's one GI. So GI geographical indication. So Yaravali's a GI, Mornington's a GI, Tassie has one.
SPEAKER_01:But I mean I don't mean I'm but I mean outside of but I mean not GI, just like actually location-wise. They make wine all over Tassie, right? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, they don't. But that's what I mean, is that it's it's interesting that we don't subcategorise to the Yeah, so you've got a range of vineyards sort of down the west, the eastern side, sort of near Hybart, then you've got the Tamar Valley, which is a little bit further up, it's sort of closer to Launceston. Um you've got some to the if you're looking at Hobart to the left-hand side near Bruney Island way. Um so they they are dotted all over, but they I think they're Tamar is really renowned for Pinot. Coal River, I think for me, is Pinot, but really I love the Rieslings that they that come out of Coal River. Um so but the problem is you're not gonna buy it, you're gonna have to look at the back label to know which part of Tessie they're from. So this is why I'm referring to it as Tasmania.
SPEAKER_01:But do you think that they are actually all comparable? Because I mean, firstly, they all have they're gonna be much cooler than anywhere else in Australia. Uh at least latitude should be cooler, right? And then is there like apart from terroir, is there a thing that like just different places adapt different styles?
SPEAKER_00:Generally, if you're in a cooler site, what happens is you've got a longer hang time. So that gives a longer time for the grape to ripen all the good stuff, not just the sugar and the retain the acidity because cool climates will keep the acid, but to accumulate the you know, the tannin precursors and the colour precursors, but also the flavour precursors, it's a longer time, so it's a slower accumulation. So you tend to I find Tassie Pinot will make it quite delicate and elegant, and I equate that to more of the upper yarrow regions because they are slightly cooler because of the big air conditioner behind them. But they they tend to be, and you know, you I know you don't like this word, ethereal Tassie Pinot's are very um soft and gentle, and they're like little bubbles in your mouth that just disappear very quickly.
SPEAKER_01:I really love that style of Pinot personally. I'm not into the big, black, powerful ones, and I think this is beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:That is stunning. Yeah. So this is the 2022 hand-picked Auburn Road Vineyard. It's from a um the degraded basalt and ironstone soil, which is truly a unique Tamar s site. It's just um it just has layers of flavour to it, and it sort of unpacks almost the tannins come in at like almost a slatey tannin to start with, and then they become a little bit fair as the fruit dissipates on your palate.
SPEAKER_01:But the tannins are so subtle, so integrated, so smooth. It's not at all hey, we should say we're tasting expensive wine actually, before people fall too in love with these. Well, get your expectations straight. I think these are all worth 90 bucks each. So this is like special treat wine, not um, sorry, uh we're not necessarily tasting your Friday night pictures.
SPEAKER_00:Well, no, because I mean, hand picked, well, they own House of Aris now. Um they the owner um he just wants to make premium wine. He's not dicking around around the edges. So he has bought um premium sites. Is that kind of insulting to anyone making no because he know I mean he's Dicking around the edges? He I look, there's there's entry-level peanut at 30 bucks, which is absolutely delicious and great fun. Yeah. But this the the handpicked is out to make premium site-driven wines. And that is their their whole aim. And that's why they always talk about the site. So we've got the Capella Vineyard in the Mornington Peninsula and Highbrow in the Yarrow Valley. So it is letting each site within each region talk. I think if this is yum.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, but if you weren't a wine person, I don't know I'm thinking about my friends who aren't super wine people who drink Shiraz and stuff. I don't think they would be able to appreciate that. You have to be someone who appreciates an elegant style of red to appreciate it.
SPEAKER_00:I think you need to be a Pinot lover. My dad, certainly, he was the same, you know, he was a big geriff and Shiraz drinker. And he would call he used to call wines like this Bugs Blood. He just used to think they were really pissy and thin, and why would I bother pouring it in my glass if I can't see through it and it doesn't stay in the glass, it's not worth drinking.
SPEAKER_01:Your Pinot weird is really big at the moment, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00:Pinot's huge, and also Tessie's finding, you know, its sights.
SPEAKER_01:It's I mean, that's flawless, that wine, I would say. As not a winemaker and not a technical taster, you might not have the same thing, but I call that flawless.
SPEAKER_00:I find it completely smooth, seamless, it's elegant, it's a beautiful wine. It is beautiful wine. If you try the second one, which is uh Mornington, immediately you'll see what I mean. It's more the colour's much more of a bright plummy colour, um, whereas the Tassie was a very pale cherry. You can smell immediately. There's more that is so different. Red fruit, like red cherry and raspberry in here, and almost raspberry licorice. It doesn't have that more cranberry, hibiscus tea-ish that you see, I think, in that the Tassie Pinot. And this one really jumps out of the glass.
SPEAKER_01:It actually, I never would have described that first one as particularly savory until I tasted this Mornington one, and all of a sudden, Tasmanian tastes savory.
SPEAKER_00:This the Mornington one almost feels jammy in comparison. It's not, it's still a very cool um uh fresh fruit profile, but it's much more on red rippers. You know, it's got that confected red skins, red rippers.
SPEAKER_01:Do you find this quite typical of Mornington, yeah?
SPEAKER_00:That's it's a tannin structure for me with Mornington. There's a real just plushness like a velvet cushion, biting on a velvet cushion.
SPEAKER_01:It is like a velvet cushion.
SPEAKER_00:Oh my god. It's that's that's the thing I love about Mornington, and it's it's the sort of Pinot that I am happy to enjoy, particularly at lunch, because it is just always so soft and gentle and cut. It's like a teddy bear.
SPEAKER_01:Um, they are very, very, very different ones. And I love this is all the same producer, so you can imagine that yeah, things are being done similarly.
SPEAKER_00:Haven't really seen any bunchy characters in the first two. I wouldn't expect a new Tassie. I just don't imagine that you get the lignification of the stems enough. Uh, 23 was a cool year, so you know they may have it sorted by hand, um, beautifully perfumed with red cherry and pomegranate. Um, yeah, just it's the tannin for me with Mornington. I love Mornington Pinot's.
SPEAKER_01:They're just I had it in my head that Mornington was going to have a bit more of like um a floral scent. And this doesn't.
SPEAKER_00:No, Mornington for me, it doesn't have that floralness. It's more red rippers is a classic sort of smell, um, raspberry dark shape.
SPEAKER_01:When you say red ripper, do you mean the thing that was previously referred to as red skins? Yeah, okay, I'm just double checking. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think they're called red rippers, is that right? I do they still exist.
SPEAKER_01:Is that what they changed them to? I don't even know if they surely they still exist.
SPEAKER_00:No, I know it's definitely not was changed to red ripper. Oh, right. Cultural appropriation and all that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Um but I don't know if they still exist.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, no, I think they may.
SPEAKER_00:But also, and this is gonna sound really random, it it smells like do you know the red clinker? The clinker lollies. Wow, I would not know they were my favourite lollies apart.
SPEAKER_01:How that smells or tastes like as compared to actually, you know what's weird? I can So it's sort of kind of milk chocolate with a strawberry smell. I can figure out I can think I can taste the green one, but I can't think of one.
SPEAKER_00:Try and chase the red one. You're good at that.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, nah.
SPEAKER_00:So I'll go and buy some.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, they are so different, and I am so glad we've done this because I did not have it that clear in my head how different they are from different regions.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and you're right. The the Tassie is more of a savory style and just very elegant and and ethereal. And now we're moving on to homeland. Again, darker. I think my glasses are a bit cardboardy. Although they haven't been stored in cardboard.
SPEAKER_01:Oh your glass oh my god, I think you're talking about the glasses on your own. No, not my glasses in the cards. What do you mean? Okay.
SPEAKER_00:So they're it's just black cherry, almost that setsuma plum character as well.
SPEAKER_01:I get that no one else seems to get, but is always my descriptory is like a tomato leaf and tomato stem. In Yarra Pino.
SPEAKER_00:And see how the the tannins aren't they're not that plush, they don't like the velvet cushion. There's a little bit more structure. I think highbrow heels in the lower yarra. Yeah, yarra glen. So it's in the warmer part of the yarra, so this would be on sort of grey soils.
SPEAKER_01:This is way more sour cherry.
SPEAKER_00:Yes.
SPEAKER_01:It's like just sour cherry. It's like um maybe cranberry as well, but it's it's tart and kind of sour, and it's not that super ripe, juicy, scrumptious style.
SPEAKER_00:It's more structured. It is more structured. And it's not doesn't have the the plushness or the ethereal-iness of the Tassie. It is more structured. If you're playing at home time to make a drinking game every time that says ethereal. That's a terrible word, I know, but it's got a sort of a Harry Potter thing. I thought it would have gone well with your millennial vibe. I don't think the word ethereal is in the most kind of. Is that I don't know. We digress. This is not a thesaurus discussion. This is um a discussion of the wines. They're they are all very distinctly different.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, so but but are they, in your opinion, distinctly represent like do you think they represent each region? 100%. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:100%. Yeah. The Yarra for me um look, it's a$90 bottle of wine. So we're talking, we're talking up there. You know, that lower floor Yarra, I tend to drink around that$30 to$45 mark. So this has obviously had some more um sort of aging, barrel aging, really concentrated. It will be all hand sorted. So they're making a wine that's gonna age.
SPEAKER_01:What is amazing about these three wines is a lot of things we taste, we can definitively say, no, that this is the best wine on the table. But of these three wines, they absolutely are of equal like um objective goodness. Oh goodness, too. Absolutely. But I'm wording well today. We both are.
SPEAKER_00:But we're sounding good, but not talking very well.
unknown:Right.
SPEAKER_01:It completely comes down to personal style. Like if you like they are objectively all the same level of quality, and it it totally depends if you like a lighter, more elegant, you'd go for Tazzy. And if you like something more like plush and velvety, you'd go for Mornington. And if you like something with a a bit more tannin and maybe a bit more like, I don't know, savory structure and stuff, you'd go yarr.
SPEAKER_00:Like, yeah, definitely. I mean, if I was having food, you know, the Mornington would be my go-to for um pancakes, pink and duck pancakes, pancakes, you know, with the hoys and sauce because there's almost some of that Chinese five spice in it. You would totally need that to go out with and then I don't know if you've had confit of duck, confit de canard. That's where they could cook it slowly in oil, and then you take it out of that tinned in oil, and then you take it out and crisp it up.
SPEAKER_01:Yum.
SPEAKER_00:That would be beautiful because it has that lovely crisp acidity cut through the fat. And then the Yara I do with what you call Margarita Canard, which is a chicken, the chicken breast, but it's got the skin, it's about that thick, and you cook it with the breast on. You don't you shouldn't eat the fat. But my now dead boss used to and get in trouble from the French woman, Josephine. She would say, No, Angela, no, don't eat the duck fat. Because you cook it, but you take it off and put it on the plate to show that you've cooked it with it on, but you're not. Oh, you weren't meant to eat it. No, because I just like it. Isn't it nice to eat it? Yeah, it's bloody delicious. Oh, that's supposed to be fat. Well, Josephine was like this and wore stilettos in the the winery, so she was very French. Oh, okay. I think it was just her her ethic. But yeah, it's each of those would be different, you know, would go with different foods. Um, three beautiful iterations of Australian Pinot. I mean, my God. Why would you spend 90 bucks in burgundy? What are you gonna get? Not much.
SPEAKER_01:If you have a wine tasting group, this is the beauty of a wine tasting group, right? Maybe you and your mate or your partner can't afford three$90 on yourself. But get a group of friends together, taste these wines, and I swear to God, you will taste the difference. And that was so damn educational for me.
SPEAKER_00:I mean, if you spend 300 bucks, 10 and 10 people, you're going to get a good glass of each wine. Yeah. For and that's more than less than you're gonna pay in a in a wine bar.
SPEAKER_01:Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00:So peeking duck of your choice, um, get it delivered or buy splurge and buy some confit de canard, but definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Go BYO. Bring your own glass. Bring your own glass. B Y O G.
SPEAKER_00:B Y O G anyway. I'm gonna finish these glasses. Nat, tune in next week because we're gonna look at sub-regionality.
SPEAKER_01:So that's the thing. That so that proved that regionality is completely true in a real thing because you told me what each of those are gonna taste like before I tasted them, and they were exactly what you said they were gonna be. So I am convinced that regionality is true in Australia for Pino. Where I am like, you're gonna test me is sub regionality a real thing? We'll let find out.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it'll be fun if you can those tickets we want.
SPEAKER_01:All right, well, we will see you next week, and until then, enjoy your nice bossy one. Drink well.
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