December 11th, 2023Wine notes …
with Clive Hartley
Once people know I’m a wine educator and have published books and articles on wine I dread their next question, which invariably comes. What’s your favourite wine? My stock answer is “what today…or yesterday?
I enjoy practically every style and the diversity of wine out there means you can never get bored or stuck on the same thing.
However, increasingly when given a choice of wine, say in a restaurant or in a friend’s cellar I do gravitate towards chardonnay for white wines. I’ll caveat that statement as my choice will change if I’m food and wine matching. But chardonnay has the potential to offer more complexity and flavour than many other varieties.
It is also the grape variety that best shows off the expertise of a winemaker. The time spent in a barrel and its contact with the dead yeast cells from fermentation (lees) can produce yeast, vanilla and cedar notes. The amount of times a winemaker stirs those lees can also build complexity in a wine.
Whether the wine undergoes malolactic fermentation and its exposure to air are other weapons in the arsenal.
Traditional Australian chardonnays were full bodied displaying heaps of butter, toast, oak with peach, apricot flavours and soft acidity. This has been toned back, and sometimes too far, with wines stripped back to citrus-focused, light-bodied acidic driven wines with some struck match sulphur notes to offer complexity.
Macedon Ranges is an excellent region for chardonnay and we have gifted winemakers to bring out the best in the fruit. Curly Flat, Hanging Rock, Granite Hills and Passing Clouds all come highly recommended. Throughout Australia’s 60+ regions you can find excellent chardonnays at all price points and styles.
For instance, in the Pyrenees region I tasted a modern styled well-made wine from Dalwhinnie – their Mesa Chardonnay 2022 and if you want that traditional Australian chardonnay, try the Mount Avoca 2021 Chardonnay.
Price points vary and range upwards from around $35, but if you want to halve that and still get a well-made wine, then try Larry Cherubino’s Folklore Chardonnay 2022 at $15. It is a blend of Pemberton, Porongurup and Margaret River fruit from WA, fermented in old French oak and matured for 10 months.
It is slightly on the light side with plenty of acidity but enough to sustain the palate length. We did go through a time when ABC was the war cry (Anything But Chardonnay)…but not now.
Clive Hartley is an award-winning wine writer, educator and consultant. Want to learn more about wine? Try his Australian Wine Guide (7th ed) now available for purchase from Paradise Books, Daylesford, Stoneman’s Bookroom, Castlemaine or via his website – www.australianwineguide.com.au
