Region: Yarra Valley Grapes: Chardonnay First Glance: Taught, Silky, Acid Driven Acclaim: 96pts
The Wine: 100% hand picked and whole bunch pressed. The juice was then transferred directly to barrel by gravity with no settling, taking full gross lees. Wild fermented in 500L French oak puncheons. Bâtonnage in Autumn, 20% malolactic fermentation. Matured for 10 months in new and used French oak – 20% new, 80% older, Taransaud, Dargaud & Jaeglé and Mercurey.
This is the lowest elevation of all of the Giant Steps single vineyards, and gifts its Chardonnays lovely pithy fruit characters, savoury saline notes and a soft and textured mid palate, finished with line and length driven by natural acidity. The most taught of the wines tasted with searing length and intensity. Drink now - 2031
The Review: Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front - 96pts "This is a tight release, though highly textural, but what really shows through here is the fruit intensity of the year. There’s a concentration to this wine, a sense of bounty. It tastes of brine, apples, citrus and cedar, with attractive bacon and salt-like highlights, plus quartz, plus some greenery. I wrote the word ‘incredible’, which says it all."
