Planted in 2007, this tiny vineyard is littered with volcanic rocks (hence the name) and lies on the plateau above the De La Terre slope—essentially making it a westerly extension of the Serré vineyard. It was originally planted with various clonal cuttings from Best’s and Tahbilk on a mix of rootstock and own roots. Holmes only uses the Best’s clone in this bottling today and the rest of the site has been grafted over to Chardonnay, giving Bannockburn a close-planted Chardonnay block (named Grigsby after Bannockburn’s long-standing vineyard manager). The density is 10,000 vines per hectare in 1.2m rows x 1.0m vine spacing, on a north-south row exposition.
The 2018 was wild-fermented with 10% whole bunches and some carbonic maceration influence, followed by maturation in French oak hogsheads for 15 months (only five to 10% new this year).