The Margaret River Chardonnay that topped my 2025 Xmas drinks (plus 15 other whites and sparkling)

The tree is still up, but the Christmas plates are long gone.

We’re now in the first days of 2026, and as I take the recycling bin out, it’s a perfect time to talk about what looked good, great and forgettable across wine and beer in the final festive days of 2026.

What did you really enjoy drinking over the past festive week?

The Christmas shebang is a multi-day affair here at Graham HQ, and also a time of year where I try not to drink samples and instead dig into the cellar for things I need/want to open. It also means we go through a lot of wine (so I’ll break this post into two parts), with bangers like this wine:

I poured this for some South Australians, and it wiped the floor, in another reminder that aged Semillon is an oft-overlooked giant of Australian white wine (that everyone should be drinking more of). This Tyrrell’s Sem comes from the seriously wet ‘lettuce leaf’ vintage in the Hunter Valley, where the whites had a distinctive green edge. Not that you’d notice it in this Tyrrell’s HVD Semillon 2012. It’s still green-hued, but with layers of lightly toasty development and a little of the HVD Vineyard golden yellow fruit stamp. It’s crisp and linear, at once so refreshing and acid-shaped, but the subtle toast and golden sunshine are such a counterpoint to the green notes in a medium bodied mode. Light and shade for days. No, I don’t think everyone will love this wine, but I kneel before it. Oh, and there is two decades of drinking glory ahead too. Magnificent. Maybe a 95/100 wine if we’re scoring, nudging 96.

By comparison, this Cullen Kevin John Chardonnay 2021 looked rather broad. It’s a mealy, full-flavoured, surprisingly oak-forward vintage of the Cullen Margaret River Chardonnay line, and maybe an average bottle with the roundness. A bit simple and thick. Still a 92/100 point wine, but a curious miss this vintage.

There was a quick sidetrip to South Australia in the days leading up to Christmas (to watch cricket, naturally) with a Salopian Inn lunch for good measure (fantastic restaurant, superb wine list, very affordable, go there). This Good Intentions Wine Co. Volcanic Lakes Chardonnay 2022 was on the list and it shone like Rudolph’s nose. Golden, funky, flinty, layered and rich, I could have basically dipped into the Burgundian section of the list for all the golden complexity and multi-layered vibes. Chardonnay with pomp and swagger. It’s maybe a little forward, but that mouthful of complexity and just-right grapefruity acidity is a new level for Mount Gambier. Top class. 18.5/20, 94/100 at least, maybe nudging 95/100.

One of the select non-cellar-sourced wines to make it into this lineup, I thought this Daosa Blanc de Blancs 2021 was another clean and pure release from the Daosa lineup. Delicate and refined, with a ‘modern Australian Chardonnay with bubbles’ mode that feels carefully finessed. My niggle is that it’s just a bit lean and neutral, leaning more ‘fresh as’ aperitif than intense and complex. 17.7/20, 92/100.

Meanwhile, the Dr Loosen GGs can sometimes feel a bit safe compared to some of the fancy releases, but this open and inviting Dr Loosen Ürziger Würzgarten Grosses Gewächs Riesling 2023 was such a charmer. Peachy, open, yet with acidity that sneaks up on you, it’s a Riesling that dips more into medium-bodied generosity rather than something steely and firm, and about as approachable as grand GG Riesling can get. It’s just yum. You then have another sip and see the stoniness and the pithiness, and it all just feels so good. 18.5/20, 94/100.

It’s preaching to the choir about how good nearly every current Oakridge release looks, and it will surprise nobody that I like Oakridge 864 Drive Block Funder & Diamond Vineyard Chardonnay 2023. If anything, this is just a little too perfect – a finessed, multi-layered Australian Chardonnay highlight, with a careful white peach and nectarine ripeness and just enough acidity to keep that bounding ripe fruit and vanilla bean fruit/oak stamp in check. Maybe a fraction forward and doesn’t tower over the ‘standard’ Oakridge Chards like some vintages, but it’s still another long, detailed and supremely clever Oakridge wine and a pretty satisfying Chardonnay. 18.5/20, 94/100.

For comparison, I opened the Oakridge 864 Aqueduct Block Henk Vineyard Chardonnay 2023, and suddenly we are up a gear. Now this is Chardonnay land. That hint of porridge and vanilla bean, and plenty of flashy peachy/nectarine, but this somehow has more swagger – a bit more crisp tang and thrust, compared to the Funder & Diamond’s style. Henk is clearly your man here, making a bold, Chardonnay drinker’s Chardonnay that still feels so refreshing. Top gold, pour me another glass. 18.7/20, 95/100.

One of my gigs pays in Bollinger Special Cuvée NV magnums (you don’t make money in the wine industry, but you drink well), which means one of the absolute constants of a Graham festive season is a Bolli magnum. This year’s interesting exercise saw two different mags open 48 hours apart, and even though both bottles arrived at the same time last Christmas, these were quite different wines. The first wine seemed more Pinot dominant, rounder, more classically Champagne, with more of the Aramis and red fruit notes and more expression. Whereas the second was tighter, more delicate, and much more backwards with a shape that was more about acidity than Pinot- bready yeasty expression. Same same, but clearly different. Both have been stored in identical (ideal) conditions, so its likely down to the cork vagaries than anything else. Could they, in fact, be from different disgorgements, and I’m hallucinating? Maybe. Fascinating to see the differences, regardless. Also, how good is Bollinger NV? I likely have Stockholm Syndrome given the volume of free magnums that arrive free on my doorstep, but damn, Bollinger NV Champagne has the charisma and flavour that I want in NV Champagne.

Speaking of character, this Latta Ex Nihilo Pinot Gris 2024 pulled up shorter than I expected with the orange hues and tangerine mode that suggested it was going to be a mouthfiller, but it just didn’t quite get there. It’s fresh and crisp, modern Gris (and shitloads better than lots of middling local Gris), but the texture feels more reined in in this vintage. Silver medal stuff. 17.7/20, 92/100.

If I were handing out trophies, the Best Wine of the Festive Season winner would be this Windows Estate Petit Lot Chardonnay 2024. I’ve emptied a few bottles of the 2023 vintage over the past 12 months (here) and hot damn if this new release isn’t another star. Chris and Jo Davies make hatfuls of wine every year from their Margaret River property (I’ve rarely seen the wines in retail) and they’re so detailed and fine that I’m happy to call Windows Estate my fave West Australian producer. What I like so much about this wine is the crystalline freshness AND flavour depth. It’s fine, filigreed, grapefruity in a way that marks classic Margs Chardonnay, taut, yet generous and almost tropical in the lines of juicy citrus freshness. It’s hardly a big wine, but the balance of flavour vs vitality is near perfect. Let’s go the full hog and call this 19/20, 96/100.

In a fascinating contrast, I paired this Christophe et Fils Montée de Tonnerre Chablis 2023 alongside the Windows, and it’s such a different wine. We’re in quite classic Chablis land here, with a quiet, slow-burning, slightly woolly mode that at first looked dull, but I came to appreciate the acidity and careful feel. I wouldn’t call this my fave style of Chablis, especially it doesn’t even shout where it’s from. But the understatement also makes this quite a satisfying drink. Quality Chablis, if a step behind the Windows in intensity and definition. 18/20, 93/100.

To bring more life, this Alexandre Giquel Multitude Vouvray 2022 was a wonderfully luscious, evocative natural wine that was a surprising hit on Christmas eve. It’s a slightly off-dry, golden, lemon and orange-scented Chenin Blanc ride that is a little oxidative and fatty yet somehow exudes this natural energy. Chenin like this is a reminder that for all the shit hung on natural wine, when its done well the unfettered joy is unmistakeable. 18/20, 93/100.

For something very different, I absolutely adored the powerhouse glory that is this Pewsey Vale 1961 Block Riesling 2024. It would have been fascinating to try this up against the Loosen just to admire the intensity contrasts. This is wildly intense Riesling, it’s searing in its limey intensity, with lime leaf and grapefruit of a volume that makes you sit back and think ‘sheesh that’s a lot of wine’. There’s a little extra lime fleshiness in there too, just to make you not feel like you’re being shot with a lime gun. What excellent wine. 18.7/20, 95/100 without even trying (and stupendously well priced at $35. I’m buying some.

I wish that same level of fruit power was in the Pierre Gaillard Condrieu 2023. I have this narrow vision of Condrieu joy, based on a handful of great Cuilleron bottles, that makes me keep buying the stuff, but so often it falls short. This Gaillard release makes all the right sounds, with a nice interplay of yellow peach dipping into a little riper apricot and just enough acidity to make it enjoyable and right. Yet, there’s still a missing x-factor here that I really want, with a volume button stubbornly refusing to go up (which may well come with bottle age) and not quite enough for $120 odd dollars. 17.7/20, 92/100+.

I’m now down to my final bottles of the Latta Siq Blanc 2021/2023 and it’s still a very nice wine. It’s mealy and waxy, a Jura-esque take that is a little wild and yet nice freshness contrasts. Maybe a little bit cheesy now with more bottle age (and it wasn’t emptied during a festive lunch) but hot damn is this a complex white wine. I’ll drink this every day of the week. 18.5/20, 94/100.

Finally, this bottle of Veuve Fourny Monts de Vertus Blanc de Blancs 2015 was the wine to see out our new year, not a patch on the sublime 2016 I had at the winery last year, but this is a star Champagne on its day. The 2015s are more forward as a whole, and though wine gets the kid glove storage treatment at Graham HQ, I think this bottle had been sitting in a warm warehouse for a while before landing on my doorstep. It opened toasty, nutty and a little aldehydic. Fascinatingly, more time in glass freshened things up, which is a nod to the classy juice in the bottle. If you see any 2016 floating around buy some (I will be in France mid March and it will be on my shopping list).