Winemaker Notes
This wine is true to the Tolpuddle Vineyard Chardonnay style: fine and precise with firm acidity, and a combination of lightness of texture and intensity of flavor.
This refined cool climate Chardonnay suits many different plates, but we find it to be a perfect match with pan-fried sea scallops.
Professional Ratings
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Australian Wine Companion
It seems a gross understatement to say that Tolpuddle has been in fine form as of late, but they have knocked it out the park again with this release from the cooler '23 vintage. The palest of straw in the glass, the aromas crisp and filigreed. Citrus, white peach and nectarine cut with glorious wisps of struck match and flinty complexity. Grilled hazelnuts, deftly-judged vanillin oak, lardo, white flowers, crushed riverstone, clotted cream and sea spray. The wine envelops the imbiber; flavours precise and pure with an umami-rich, mineral cadence, dreamy texture and daubs of spiced oatmeal, grilled peaches and flint. The finish is sustained, the only thing unresolved the need for another (larger?) bottle. An outstanding Australian chardonnay.
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James Suckling
Sophisticated and polished aromas of flint, stone fruit, lemon curd and beeswax. The palate is medium-bodied with a creamy texture that is cut through with a laser-like acidity, giving notes of grapefruit rind, shortbread, orange blossoms and chalk. Exceptional poise and balance with underlying tension coming from a cool vintage. Drink or hold.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2023 Chardonnay feels fleshy and wholesome compared to the crushed shell restraint of the 2022 tasted alongside. Here, the fruit has a billowing aspect, the phenolics are softer and the fruit rounder than the previous vintage. The season was the coldest and latest on record, and it was also very wet. The wine's performance in the mouth is different here; the tannins are present and accounted for, but they have less linearity than the other wines in the lineup. The acidity is salty, as per the vineyard's stamp, and the fruit is powerful, as per the same. This is a super wine. It won a slew of trophies and awards, and as a result, the wine sold out far quicker than usual. 13.5% alcohol.
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.
Directly south of the city of Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula wine region, the cool-climate island of Tasmania has earned an honorable reputation as the country’s finest producer of Sparkling Wine. Naturally the region also excels in top quality still wines from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling, all distinguished because of a high natural acidity. Most of the Tasmania vineyards cluster around the eastern side of the island from north to south.