2023 is the gift that keeps on giving. Across the board, our Victorian growers have turned out some of their most exciting wines to date, and Barney Flanders is no different. “It’s some of the most intense fruit I’ve ever seen,” he told us, “There’s so much vitality and energy in these wines.” It was another long, cool and even season in Mornington, and while yields were very modest, the quality of the Terre fruit (make that the Merricks fruit writ large) is off the scale. Barney’s flagship Terre wines are drawn from two specific parcels in Garagiste’s Merricks Grove vineyard. Terre de Feu—the Land of Fire—debuted in 2013 and remains the estate’s only red fermented with 100% bunches. Crafted from vines growing in ancient ferrosol soils, it is Garagiste’s most powerful and complex Pinot Noir. “There’s something about the Terre parcels,” Barney explains, “The vines grow differently, they behave differently, and the fruit is always a head above the rest.” Terre Maritime, a rocking, chalky Chardonnay drawn from several rows of Chardonnay in the top corner of Merricks Grove, joined the family in 2017. It comes from a cooler part of the vineyard where the vines are rooted in brown soils rather than the more common reddish dirt of the area. True to its name, Maritime is the most salty and savoury expression of this impressive Mornington vineyard. In short, both wines are dripping in character and style and, this year, are very limited. Chop chop!