Tassie vignerons look to lift pinot quality

The Tasmanian wine industry is moving to establish a vine improvement association to lift the quality of pinot noir grapes.

CEO and chief wine maker of Tamar Ridge and Wine Industry Tasmania director, Andrew Pirie, says it's the right time to form a society to facilitate the testing and selection of superior pinot noir grape lines.

Dr Pirie says unproven introductions of pinot noir clones are being tested in a systematic way for the first time and they may well be better than some of the current clones.

"I think we're seeing new numbers such as 292 and 373, numbers of clones that will probably become famous in the future," he says.

"They're just starting to emerge."

"They do have interesting flavours that could be better in some situations than the current clones."