Mac Forbes
Mac Forbes is undeniably one of the Yarra Valley’s leading producers. A Yarra boy, born & bred, Mac’s work has been followed closely since his high profile & first role as winemaker at the iconic Mount May. After a sojourn to Austria working as an advisor on behalf of Wine Australia, Mac returned to his home with a powerful drive to explore the terroir of the Yarra Valley…thoroughly. From the beginning of his eponymous label, Mac’s wines have been clearly identified as exercises in establishing a sense of terroir, showcasing place over style and championing the subregional expressions of the Yarra Valley.
There is a single question at the core of Mac’s work today: “How do you get a vivid palate that reflects the soil?”
By harvesting fruit on the cusp of ripeness and processing with minimal intervention, over many vintages the characters of each vineyard become clear in the wines: for example, the red soils of Hoddles Creek inform the wines with roundness and sweetness and the grey silt stone of Woori Yallock gives finer structure and a sense of elegance.
While Chardonnay & Pinot Noir occupy Mac’s operation in the Yarra Valley, it is amongst the Strathbogie Ranges that Mac turns his attention to Riesling. Sourced from a vineyard of Riesling planted on its own roots in 1983, the Riesling project looks at the varying expressions of site across sweetness levels. The RS number on each label indicates the sweetness as measured in grams per litre of residual sugar. The EB range is an ongoing project of Experimental Batches just to play around with wine styles, unusual blends, or varying degrees of skin contact.