Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This has evolved beautifully in the bottle without overstepping any marks. It offers green apples, chalk, white peppers, cloves, dried nutmeg and so much dried citrus peel. The palate shows a fleshy core of stone fruit, as well as balance and poise. This is all thanks to the refreshing stab of acidity that guides it through to the steely finish.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Chardonnay has a complex, savory and spice laced nose with notes of baker's yeast, cashews, marmite and allspice over a core of apricots, pink grapefruit and lemongrass. The palate has wonderful layers of toast, nut, stone fruit and spice flavors packed in an elegant medium-bodied package with a creamy texture and layers of mineral flavors lingering Long into the finish. In a word, yum.
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Wine Spectator
Intense, with tropical overtones of pineapple and passion fruit complementing the core of citrus and melon. Powerful acidity carries the flavors through the finish. Drink now through 2020.
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.