Exciting times ahead
Greg Melick, who founded the Pressing Matters vineyard with fellow barrister Francis Douglas KC back in 2002, sold his final share of the business in 2025 to Fogarty-Hall, a partnership between the Fogarty Wine Group, which has recently become a major force in Tasmanian wine, and the Hall family. Fogarty-Hall has also bought East Coast newcomer Ossa, which like Pressing Matters had been using Fogarty’s Tasmanian Vintners contract winery to vinify its wines.
Pressing Matters had long used the same facility, before Fogarty purchased it, but for the last 10 years the wines had been made by Samantha Connew in the winery at the vineyard and at other people’s facilities. Now Connew has been freed from that job and the winemaking of Pressing Matters will return to Tas Vintners, with Liam McElhinney in charge.
McElhinney told me: “Pressing Matters wines will continue to be made onsite at the winery which was built three years ago. We will also move our prestige pinot noir winemaking up to this winery. So Lowestoft, OSSA et al will be made up there with my team.”
Connew has just opened her own cellar door, a home for her Stargazer wines, which has been built on her Palisander vineyard, which, like Pressing Matters, is located at Tea Tree in the Coal River Valley.
Back to Pressing Matters, which earlier underwent a total makeover in its labelling, to make the changes complete. The original label was distinctive and quirky, albeit a bit funky: a bunch of grapes being squashed inside a law book and oozing its juice—a witty reference to the lawyers who started the vineyard as well as the winemaking process. The name Pressing Matters is likewise a double-entendre.
It will be interesting to watch and see if the style of Pressing Matters pinot noirs is retained, and if Fogarty’s winemaker Liam McElhinney applies the same techniques that he uses on Fogarty’s highly polished Lowestoft wines (and Bream Creek’s pinots, which he also makes at Tas Vintners).
Melick always insisted that Australian pinot noir should have structure, like Burgundy, and he wasn’t shy of tannin.
The latest Pressing Matters pinot noirs to come across my tasting bench are superb wines to drink now, although I have no doubt they will also age beautifully.
Pressing Matters Pinot Noir 2024 (AUD $75) earned 95 points. The wine has Two Merits in The Real Review Wine Classification of Australia. All five vintages since 2020 have scored gold-ribbon points
Likewise Pressing Matters Cuvée C Pinot Noir (AUD $150), which is the ‘reserve’ pinot of this vineyard. All but two of the nine vintages produced thus far have scored gold-ribbon points. The 2022, 2023 and 2024 vintages which I reviewed recently have all scored 95 points. These are plush, decadently rich wines with fine, supple tannins and serious concentration.
Pressing Matters pinots are smashing wines which are right at the increasingly crowded peak of the Tasmanian pinot noir pantheon.
- Huon Hooke – The Real Review – Jan 2026