Luke Lambert Wines Crudo Chardonnay 2021

The Crudo Chardonnay comes off the Denton block, a northwest-facing slope of granitic sand over heavy granite boulders. Luke notes the 2021 growing season was excellent in the Yarra Valley. A mild summer with regular rain events resulted in a long, slow and late harvest. In the bottle, the wine shows a clean acid line from the granitic sand and east-north-east aspect, plus the cooler year makes this Chardonnay a citrus and talc-driven version that will unwrap with more texture over the next six months. 

As usual, this was whole-bunch pressed, wild-yeast fermented with no temperature control, saw full (wild) malo and old oak (2,000-litre French oak foudre for maturation), then zero fining or filtration and only minimal sulphur at bottling.