No #ChardoMay, no worries. Hello to 10 top-shelf Australian Chardonnay for May 2024

There will be no #ChardoMay in 2024.

Last year, I ambitiously decided to devote the whole month to Chardonnay and invited everyone to send me all their Chardonnay wines. It was fun, and I loved seeing so many delicious wines, but this year, I have so little extra bandwidth that I wasn’t going to do a Chardencore.

So, before I get going on more bad Chardonnay puns, here is a selection of 10 top-shelf Australian Chardonnay for May 2024, in alphabetical order.

Juniper Cornerstone Karridale Chardonnay 2021

Juniper, the quiet achiever of Margaret River. This feels like classy modern Margs Chardonnay, too, if just a little lean. 100% Gingin clone here, from a single block in Karridale, wild fermented, matured in 40% new oak for nine months, and no malolactic fermentation.

Pretty, coiffed and delicious fresh but golden wine. There’s a vanillan swathe of oak, but it’s a passing thing. This has quite old-school, generous white peach fruit, as if we were back in the early noughties, which is such a surprise for a 12.5% wine. Maybe the oak sweetness makes it feel more generous? I’m undecided. I really like it, though – it feels more generous, almost chewy, and then there’s the crisp/rich Gingin clone signature of grapefruit and melon. Nice wine. It’s just a little simple through the finish, and the acid bites a bit, which is a nod to how maybe a little more malo could make it better. Still, this is pretty delicious in a fresh and clever, yet still rich enough, mode.

Best drinking: better in 2025, and then for at least five years, probably more. 18.5/20, 94/100. 12.5%, $65. Juniper website. Would I buy it? Definitely.

Lyons Will Chardonnay 2023

Here’s a young Macedon Ranges wine producer making fine wines. I got excited back in 2022 about the Lyons Will wines and why I think Macedon Ranges is pretty rad. This new ’23 Chardonnay is great too.

Matured for nine months in 20% new oak and full malo, just as a contrast. This is a crisp but textured Macedon Chardonnay with layers. There’s a biscuity fullness thanks to the full malo (which is different in this bracket), yet it’s still fundamentally a tight Chardonnay. It’s interesting to see some funk in this Chardonnay on the finish, too – a little woolly oxidative, solidsy hint. Not everyone is going to like that, but I think it just adds a little colour. Flavour-wise, this has white peach, a little mandarin, white nectarine, a layer of citrus and ripe stone fruit. But it’s crisp and fresh too. It’s hard not to notice how long this hung around for, too – it’s long! Quality stuff.

Best drinking: now and for probably ten years yet. 18.5/20, 94/100. 12.4%, $48. Lyons Will website. Would I buy it? Yes.

Mayfield Vineyard Eighteen Fifteen Chardonnay 2023

Finally, we’re seeing more top-end Orange Chardonnay. Like a sleeping giant, the Chardies from the side of Mt Canobolas are/could/will be great. This is a heavily worked style with lots of reductive notes – it’s going to be divisive, but I see it as complex, too. In a wine show, I would either win trophies or get no medal, and I could see both sides (and my score went up and down many times).

It smells of yoghurt, Golden Sao biscuits and whipped butter, with that creamy funk a big character. Unlike some wines made in this mode, it’s actually a pretty clever wine, with punchy peach fruit, spiced oak adding a layer, and then tangy green apple acid punctuating the finish. That sour cream vs taut malic acid contrast is quite intriguing and long. I liked it.

Best drinking: worth waiting for another year for it to settle down, and then probably drink in the 2020s. 17.7/20, 92/100. 13%, $37. Mayfield website. Would I buy it? Worth a few glasses.

Oakridge Henk Chardonnay 2022

We have two Oakridge wines in the lineup this month, and this Henk is my favourite. From a vineyard in the Upper Yarra at Woori Yallock, what I’m constantly impressed about this wine, and indeed everything Oakridge, is the value. It’s a tired comparison, but why bother drinking unreliable $150 1er cru Burgundy when this astonishingly good wine is $48?

A wonderful. It walks the careful tightrope between opulence and freshness with such ease. Importantly, there is fruit here beyond the winemaking inputs. It smells of Aramis aftershave balm (my fave when I was a young shaving teenager), whipped butter, nougat and lemon cream. There a sense of density, of tangerine and yellow nectarine richness, and width, but then it’s still never flabby. Right there, that’s a signal to me of high-quality viticulture – to get flavour and yet retain acidity? That takes skill. This has big wine, with layers of stonefruit, lemon custard and chew. But it’s not heavy – you could even call it medium-bodied in some lights. It’s grand, in a Burgundian way, but proudly Australian too. Yes.

Best drinking: already great. 18.7/20, 95/100. 13.6%, $48. Oakridge website. Would I buy it? Absolutely.

Oakridge Willowlake Chardonnay 2022

Each year, the fun game with these Oakridge single vineyard Chardonnay releases is to pick the favourites. This year, Willowlake feels like a step behind Henk but with scope for much more next year.

Winemaking is not that different across the range. Wild fermented juice, matured for 10 months in barrel. Coiffed and with a little more milk bottle reduction than Henk, this vintage feels white peach and has a more subtle style. Less rambunctious, more grower. Still, it’s a wine that stakes its claim from the first nose. Creamed whipped butter and fine oak play a part, then a tight-grained creamy palate. Long, finessed, but also trying to come out of its shell. Fine wine, that will reward the patient (who buy Oakridge Chardonnay instead of Penfolds reds).

Best drinking: see you next year. 18/20, 93/100+. 13.4%, $48. Oakridge website. Would I buy it? Worth another look.

Rising Chardonnay 2023

Another very clever Yarra Chardonnay under this label, with Anthony Fikkers wines ridiculously good for the dollars. I’m a huge fan. I also like the new labels, although picking out which wine is is bloody hard work.

As ever, this a delicate wine. Green apples, creamy layers, refinement. It looks less ripe than 13% but beautiful too, with cool grapefruit acidity. I’ve been critical in some years of this wine being too lean, and this is still a lightish sort of wine, but gee, this ’23 is a lovely creamed appley beauty to it that feels refreshing and lovely. All that refined clever Chardonnay for $35? A winner for me.

Best drinking: good now and for many years yet. 18/20, 93/100. 13%, $35. Rising website. Would I buy it? it’s a steal.

Rising One Acre Chardonnay 2021

The first time I’ve seen this wine, and likely a very small make. A barrel selection from a single acre of 30-year-old Chardonnay vines on the Rising Vineyard. The top dog wine for $45? Get some.

A different vintage, but also a bigger wine. More oak richness, and now it’s spiced apples, a little nutty bottle age and more oomph than the standard Rising Chardonnay. There’s a certain golden honeyed peach vibe here, with this moreish, yet crisp, acidity. A little x-factor on the palate, with excellent concentration and hints of dried lemon and orange in a landscape of fine white peach delicacy. Well done. Maybe a little raw on the finish, but so so good.

Best drinking: now, but will be alive for many years yet. 18.5/20, 94//100. 12.5%, $45. Rising website. Would I buy it? Oh yes.

Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay 2023

There is a big jump in RRP for this entree to the Tapanappa Chardonnay range, but when crops are low and demand is high, it makes a lot of sense. This Piccadilly Chardonnay comes from ‘Pat and Ted’s Vineyard on Mount Bonython’, which I don’t know much about as a vineyard source, but it clearly works.

As ever with BrIan’s Chardonnay releases, this feels like proper Chardonnay, not some Sauv imitation, with a distinct mealy white peach grapefruit mouthwatering, rich/freshness that feels very right. There’s less oak influence in this wine (it spent less than six months in barrel) and more about that pure Piccadilly flavour and a contrast of flavours. There’s a line of solidsy whipped and filigreed white peach/fig ripeness, before a pure finish. It’s perhaps not in the same complexity class as the two Tiers wines, but a classy wine.

Best drinking: good now, better next year. 17.7/20, 93/100. 12.5%, $60. Tapanappa website. Would I buy it? I’d probably wait and shell out for the wine below.

Tapanappa Tiers 1.5m Chardonnay 2023

The close-planted 1.5m block on the Tiers vineyard is now twenty years old and is clearly hitting its straps. In the early days, an element was missing in the spotty-labelled 1.5m Chardonnay wines that reminds us what vine age does to concentration and complexity. But now? Things are different.

Green gold colours are unmistakeably ‘Tiers’ in character. It’s youthful, with a vanilla banana lift over a palate of fig, nuts, peach, nectarine and even a little golden honey. It’s linear, in a medium-bodied way, but still subtly powerful in its way – refined, never hard, just the right amount of modern whipped butter winemaking and white fruits and a pristine palate. It is way too young but rather perfect in its crisp starched linen and white nectarine mode, and ultimately so drinkable. So drinkable. I had to stop myself from emptying my glass; it was so perfect. Excellent wine.

Best drinking: already great. 18.7/20, 95/100. 12.5%, $90. Tapanappa website. Would I buy it? Yes.

Tapanappa Tiers Chardonnay 2023

It feels Grinchish, but I’d rather drink the 1.5m Chardonnay now. That’s because, as this vertical showed, Tiers needs a good five years to show its best, not one. Especially from a vintage that was cool (1093C vs the average of 1135C measuring the Heat Degree Days scale) and a harvest that was late. I have no doubt that this wine will be the better wine in time.

Still, this smells great – white peach, vanilla bean, and some fresh wood. There’s this delightful white peachy flourish that is generous, juicy, and primal. It is probably too primal – the grapefruit acidity juts out, and there is a freshly sawn log new oak smell, too. But it’s all present and correct. That resounding creamed nectarine flavour is intense and it’s going to work. Greatness of elements, pulling together (but not yet). Buy with absolute confidence.

Best drinking: 2026 at least. 18.5/20, 94/100+. 12.9%, $110. Tapanappa website. Would I buy it? I still would yes.