Winemaker Notes
The nose shows stone fruits and lifted barrel ferment aromas of cashew nut and bacon. The medium weight palate has plenty of spicy fruit flavor and just enough grape skin character to fill out the palate.
Pair it with Tandoori Chicken.
Professional Ratings
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Wine Spectator
This subdued white shows plenty of elegance and grace. Spice and toasty notes linger in the background, and pear and melon flavors have a succulent texture, with a thread of acidity that weaves in and out. Drink now through 2022.
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Medium straw color; dried leaves, ripe apples, quite attractive, fine depth; medium bodied, good layers on the palate; dry, medium acidity, nicely balance; ripe apple, creamy oak; medium to long finish.
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Wine Enthusiast
A more approachable, balanced and brighter wine than this producer’s upper tier wine, this opens with subtle notes of lime, peach, florals and flint, backed by a creamy toffee oak nuance. There’s a lovely balance of bright acidity and a chalky phenolic texture, with a juicy citrus fruit flavors stretching out to the finish. This is a tasty, foodfriendly drop for drinking now.
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Wine & Spirits
A portion of this wine fermented in barrel, the rest in tank, the parts coming together in a rich blend of crunchy apple skin, fresh pear and buttered almond flavors. Serve it with poached salmon.
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.