Pierro Chardonnay 2022

The Wine

95 Points Jane Faulkner (Halliday Wine Companion) "According to Pierro’s website, the music to play while tasting this wine is Delibes’ Flower duet from the opera Lakmé, described, in part, as “balanced perfectly with richness, depth and hidden power. Long lingering finish that leaves one feeling delightfully pensive and soothed.” Reads like a tasting note for the wine. Yet who sings the duet is important – my favourite recording is the incomparable Dame Joan Sutherland and Jane Berbié. Like the Dame, this wine is powerful, rich and precise. It’s full-bodied and layered with ripe stone fruit, nutty, creamy lees and spicy oak, and yet, the super-tight acid line seems to corral all those overt flavours into submission driving to a long, resounding finish while allowing moreish, savoury aspects to rise – lemon-lime freshness cleansing the palate. Impressive." 

95 Points Gary Walsh (The Wine Front) "Wonderful to lift such a lightweight bottle! Peach, pear and fennel, spiced butter cashews, flinty top note, a little saline with it. Lively acidity and chalky dusty texture, creamy with some tropical accents, and a lime-laced finish of excellent length. Such regal carriage and delivery of bold Chardonnay flavour." - 

The Details

Pierrot, the original sad clown, is a much loved character of European pantomime. Forever chasing an impossible dream, Pierrot is in love...

The wines of Piero are the culmination of passion, innovation, location, climate and time. Wherever Piero wines are enjoyed around the world today they invariably impart a tangible trace of their idyllic place of origin – warm southern climes, ancient soils, healthful vines and years of skilled hands-on viticulture and winemaking. For over four decades, Piero have striven to fuse these elements to produce superior wines of singular extraction, character and elegance. The quest for heightened quality continues with each passing vintage.

Pierro was the original high-density vineyard planting in Margaret River and also one of the first in Australia. Vine density ranges from 4,000 to 5,500 vines per hectare, compared to a conventional Australian vineyard of 1,900 per hectare. This was to make the vines more competitive, balance their fruit yield and promote flavour intensity.

The soils are moderately deep laterite gravel with interspersed granite, over ancient base rock with friable pink clay merging into a shattered rock layer. These granite soils are some of the most open, warm and well drained of our viticultural soils, allowing great root penetration and exploration.

The winery and winemaker are inextricably linked to the relatively short but remarkable history of Margaret River wine and today form an integral part of that narrative.

 A medical practitioner as well as a fully qualified viticulturalist and winemaker, Mike juggled the two demanding vocations for 25 years. Only recently did he finish up with his duties as a country doctor to devote his energies full-time to perfecting his wines. Yet in some ways it was the a mixture of the two callings that lead to the birth of Pierro, which today is among the most acclaimed small wineries in Australia.

After graduation in medicine from the University of Western Australia in 1973 at the age of 24, Mike Peterkin decided that his love of wine and winemaking could not be ignored any longer. As if a degree in medicine wasn't enough, he attended South Australia's respected Roseworthy Agricultural College in 1976 and 1977 and gained a Diploma in Oenology.

From 1978 to 1981, he made wines at Enterprise Wines at Clare, Cullen Wines at Margaret River and Alkoomi in Western Australia's great southern region. But he had not forsaken medicine and in 1982 completed a postgraduate degree in obstetrics, gynecology and postgraduate work in anaesthetics.

Through it all he harboured a deep desire to one day produce fine wines from his own vineyard be that where it may. Margaret River was a particular interest due to some very promising wines starting to emerge from this little-known south-west corner of his home state.