The 2022 Yattarna Chardonnay comprises fruit from Tumbarumba (61%), Tasmania (particularly Coal River Valley, 26%) and the balance from the Adelaide Hills. This wine ages slowly and gracefully, and I love it for that. The phenolics frame a powerful core of fruit that is at once streamlined and wide. It blankets the mouth and persists long after the wine is gone. At this stage, it feels inchoate in its development: tiny fish hooks of texture and a frisky sort of acid line both indicate that the wine has some time to go before it fully realizes its potential. This is forever the blue-chip investment in this collection for my taste, and there is a perpetually seamless cohesion of malolactic fermentation into the wine. The Yattarna is fully inoculated with estate-developed yeast strains, built in conjunction over time with the AWRI. It has 12.5% alcohol, a pH of 3.11 and 6.8 grams per liter of total acidity, and it matured for eight months in French barriques (44% new).

UC Davis I10V5 clones and Bernard 96 in Tumbarumba, Tasmania and Adelaide Hills. Average age – 30 years. Hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed, yeast culture used. Lees stirred in oak every 2 weeks for the 8 months in barrel – French oak barriques (44% new, 56% one year old). Approximately 90% went through malolactic conversion. 2 months in stainless steel prior to bottling. Crossflow filtered. TA 6.8 g/l, pH 3.11. Creamy, oaky and lightly spiced from the oak, with the cool-climate fruit more citrus than pear. It is also a tiny bit herbal and floral, with melon-like sweetness to the fruit. Very youthful but already harmonious and ready to drink, even if it would benefit from longer bottle age. Extremely crisp and focused, pulling in tight on a long finish. (JH)

Tasted blind. Light sulphidic matchstick aroma, bright acid that gives lovely zest on the palate, but leans towards being slightly too sharp on the finish. Light-bodied style that will perhaps develop more flesh and interest with time. (RH)