Winemaker Notes
The 2020 Giant Steps Yarra Valley Chardonnay is a naturally high acidity wine with incredible bright flavors of fresh melons with a citrus edge.
Ideal pairings for this wine include fried soft shell crab Bao, with fresh coriander and bean shoots. Grilled fresh goats curd and olive tapenade on grilled sourdough and fresh rocket salad. Roast crispy skin baby chicken, preserved lemon and roast garlic. Aged Pecorino cheese drizzled with extra virgin olive oil.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
A very fresh and composed chardonnay that offers aromas of lemon, lightly spiced pear pastry and peach. The intense and fresh palate holds a line of juicy peach and pear flavors in a smoothly enriched, focused style. Drink now.
-
Wine Spectator
This offers a vibrant, mouthwatering mix of lime peel, peach and pineapple flavors on a sleek and juicy frame, with hints of spearmint, matcha green tea and fresh ginger that linger on the long, lingering finish. Drink now through 2022.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
As the most important area of wine production in Victoria today, the Yarra Valley is most popular for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which account for over half of vineyard acreage. A gentle, rolling and rural region alongside the Margaret River, the Yarra Valley has a cool maritime climate with a lengthy growing season, perfect for these cool-climate varieties.
Two styles of Pinot Noir are possible here. The warmer Lower Yarra Valley with sandy, loam soils, produces plush and fruity Pinot Noir while the cooler, higher-elevation Upper Yarra Valley with soils of young red basalt, produces more angular and mineral-driven Pinot Noir.
Yarra Valley Chardonnay is among the best in Australia. To preserve the floral aromatics and fresh citrus flavors for which this area’s Chardonnay is so appreciated, time in barrel is restrained (though barrel fermentation is common). The best Yarra Valley Chardonnays display brilliant acidity, leesy characteristics, citrus, stone fruit and flavors of ginger and spice.
Shiraz and Cabernet find success in parts of this region as well.