The Reserve Pinot from Orange’s Slow Wine Co. was pretty ambitious, but what about this more affordable Slow Wine Co. Chardonnay 2021? It’s certainly polished. Lots of flinty funk, maybe a bit too far into the sulphides, then a lick of butterscotch oak and yellow fruit. There’s a missing middle here, where it transitions from butterscotch into firm and flinty acidity with some oak tannins. But plenty stylish mod- Chardonnay all the same.

THE VERDICT

• Best drinking: now to five years and some. It’s not going anywhere
• Score (out of 20): 17.5
• Score (out of 100): 91
• Alcohol %: 13.50
• RRP (in $AUD): 35
• Winery website: https://slowwineco.com.au/
• Would I buy it?: worth a few glasses