Philip Rich on Yarra Yering releasing its second Crowe x George vintage

Sarah Crowe's achievements since arriving at Yarra Yering in late 2013 are quite a bit longer than my arm. The 2017 Halliday Wine Companion Winemaker of the Year, the 2021 Gourmet Traveller WINE Winemaker of the Year and the 2022 Australia Society of Viticulture & Oenology (ASVO) Winemaker of the Year all contribute to one of this country’s most impressive resumes. Not to mention all the accolades and awards both the winery and the wines have picked up during this time. 

So, when part owner Ed Peter challenged Crowe in 2017 to make a special bottling of Dry Red No. 1, she was wary of the expectations that come with very highly priced, so called ‘icon’ wines. Crowe thought long and hard about what this wine would look, and equally importantly, taste like.  

The result is the second release of the Limited-Edition Crowe x George 2019. Crowe started, as she puts it ‘by pulling the No.1 apart in her mind’. From the beginning and starting with the first vintage in 1973, the foundation of Dry Red No.1 was the cabernet and merlot that was (and no one knows exactly why) interplanted in Block 1 in 1969. Petit Verdot came later while Malbec, which played a part from the beginning, is not planted in Block 1. The net result is that the first two Crowe x George wines are a 75/25% cabernet/merlot blend as opposed to the current day Dry Red No.1 which is a blend of 60/24/11/5% cabernet, merlot, malbec and petit verdot.

Although Crowe never met Bailey Carrodus (he passed away in 2008) I have always been struck by how invested Crowe is in both Carrodus’ and Yarra Yering’s history.

The next question Crowe therefore asked herself when it came to making the wine was ‘how did Bailey Carrodus make them in the early years?’ 

The early wines were basket pressed and spent a lot of times on skins. And while today’s wines are air bag pressed, this new wine, in a nod to those early, more extracted and very long-lived wines, spent a month on skins as opposed to the usual 10-14 days. Other differences include gravity bottling the wine by hand and it’s the only wine in the stable that isn’t fined or filtered. 

Along with opening the 2018 and 2019 Crowe x George for me this week, Sarah also opened the 2019 Agincourt, Dry Red No.1 and Carrodus Cabernet Sauvignon. 2019 was a wonderful year for both Yarra Valley cabernet and Yarra Yering with the Dry Red No.1 being named the Halliday Wine Companion Wine of the Year for 2022. Jane Faulkner wrote, back in 2021 that the wine was ‘mesmerising’ with the ‘promise of more to come.’ Nothing has changed. Sumptuously fruited, it is still a baby.

Which brings me to the 2019 Crowe x George which is a modern, back to the future, classic in the making. It’s more savoury, with its earthiness and black olive tapenade, than the Dry Red No.1 from the same vintage. Where it really makes it intent clear, however, is on the palate where the wine’s densely packed yet elegant palate intersects with firm, uncompromising yet still perfectly integrated tannins. In the mould of wines like the 1990 Dry Red No.1, this is destined for an exceptionally long, distinguished life.

Marketing wanted to call it The Crowe but Sarah had other ideas. Andrew George serendipitously started as the viticulturist at Yarra Yering in late 2012, a year before Crowe, who commented that ‘we are about the same age and seemed to click immediately from the beginning.’ Crowe went on to add that they have worked as a team to build on Yarra Yering’s reputation and that the final name acknowledges that the wine is a result of their collaborative work together over the last decade and a bit.

The 2019 Crowe x George will be available to purchase directly from the winery on July 3 – keep an eye on its website for more details.