Rob Hall is a pretty funny guy. But this is no joking matter - this is a serious bottle of wine. There's such a complex cacophony of characters on the nose that you can lose yourself in it. It starts out with a slight smokiness. Then there's waves of fruit - Lemon peel. Bruised white peach. Next we move on to spicy, savoury notes like oatmeal, hazelnut shortbread and a creamy, lactic smell. Drink it and you'll see it's fine and sumptuously textured. The acid kicks in right at the end and really elongates the flavours, pushing them on and on, meaning you can taste it long after you've taken a sip...a sign of a really great bottle of wine.

Being a part-time professional photographer, Rob Hall is a winemaker with a keen eye for detail, and something of an artistic flourish which (although he probably wouldn’t say this about himself) definitely comes across in his solid Yarra Valley produce. Unpretentious and approachable, yet displaying some serious finesse and bags of character, Rob Hall wines are the perfect example of where Aussie wines - and Yarra Valley wines in particular - are at right now in 2017. Like many winemakers of his generation, Rob Hall grew up with great wine and grapevines pretty much on his doorstep, yet never really believed that one day he too could be seeing his name on a bottle. After all, that kind of work is only for experts who’ve inherited land and the big book of winemaking secrets, right? This feeling continued even as he started working as a grape picker… and then continued when he got a job working for Mount Mary Vineyard… and then he realised that the experience he’d gained and the passion he felt for wine was more than enough to go it alone. Since he set up the Rob Hall winery in 2014, it’s fair to say he’s never looked back (apart from to kick himself for not doing it sooner), and has gained plenty of fans as a result of his beautifully made, delicious Yarra Valley bottles of vino.