Description / Reviews
Lime, grapefruit, white peach, floral, light vanilla and almond, salted pistachio, spice and a whisper of fennel. Very fine and fluid, a fine powdery texture, a little savoury and saline, very long closing with a certain juiciness and quiet grip. Beautifully made, nothing out of place, yet it offers distinct character. Wonderful. More to come. 96 points. Gary Walsh, The Winefront Sep 2026
"Three distinctive parcels of Chardonnay were chosen to compose this wine, each bringing its own cadence of flavour, texture and place. The philosophy is one of restraint: to work gently, preserve the natural line of acidity and allow vineyard and vintage to speak with clarity. Rather than imposing a house style, the aim is to reveal the detail already present in the fruit, building complexity through selection, élevage and the quiet accumulation of small decisions in the winery. The maturing Chardonnay plantings at our Gillingbrook vineyard have brought a new dimension to this approach. Different soils, aspects and mesoclimates give rise to parcels of subtly different character, providing greater depth from which to shape the final wine. One parcel may bring fruit intensity, another mineral tension and line, another depth and texture.
As the vines deepen their roots and the vineyards find their natural rhythm, these differences become more pronounced, allowing the blend to be assembled with ever greater precision. It is less about having more Chardonnay and more about having greater choice—and the ability to select only those parcels that bring something distinctive to the composition. In the cellar, the hand remains deliberately light. Parcels are kept separate and allowed to find their own expression, with fermentation and maturation in carefully selected oak used as a frame rather than a feature. Time on lees brings texture and quiet savoury complexity, while the wine’s natural acidity provides shape, tension and length. The craft lies as much in knowing when not to intervene as it does in intervention itself—preserving the fine details that distinguish one vineyard and one season from another.
There is a quiet authority to the finished wine, carried with remarkable finesse. White blossom and nectarine emerge first, followed by nougat, fresh citrus and finely drawn lime pith, with a cool mineral note running beneath. The palate unfolds around a luminous core of lemon curd and white stone fruit, subtly embroidered with hazelnut and restrained oak spice. There is intensity here, but no excess; texture without weight; complexity without distraction. Fine, mineral acidity carries the wine effortlessly through a long, composed finish—a Chardonnay of purity, tension and quiet power, shaped by an exceptional Tasmanian season and an increasingly intimate understanding of place." - Lowestoft, Winemaker
