Winemaker Notes
Notes of lime curd and stonefruit. On the palate, nougat, pineapple and ripe peach combine to make an elegant harmonious wine.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
A lively white with sliced green-apple, lemon and stone aromas and flavors. Medium to full body. Layered and flavorful. Drink now or hold.
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Wine Enthusiast
From 30-year-old vineyards in the Coldstream area of the lower Yarra, this is a solid, relatively cool-climate wine commencing with bright citrus and stone fruit aromas backed by vanilla and baking spice. There's a lingering musty, damp earth, mineral note, but it doesn't overpower. It's medium bodied and chalky textured with juicy, vibrant fruit and a lick of oak showing. Drink now–2028.
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Decanter
While it’s no Mount Mary or Oakridge 864 – the cream of Yarra Valley Chardonnay – this round, approachable wine offers fine value for the quality. Made by winemaker Tim Shand from the Napoleone family vineyard, it ticks all the boxes with a generous palate of apple crumble and custard, toasty oak spice and a streak of lemony acidity. Drinking Window 2020 - 2023
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.