2024 Stevens Road Chardonnay

There’s a lot of energy and drive here, even if the wine’s tightly coiled; give it time to unfurl, allowing the aromas and flavours to reveal themselves. Then, expect grapefruit, lemon, match-strike flintiness, sweet spices and cedary oak with a slip of creamy/nutty lees. It leaves an impression, and it’s an excellent, lasting one at that.

It was a hot season, but the early picking of this variety and its southern Margaret River location has resulted in a wine that is so well balanced and intense. The fruit was whole bunch pressed and then all barrel fermented, with the fermentation allowed to occur naturally. All French oak, with about twenty percent new, and it spent about nine months with regular stirring. The Gin Gin clone has produced the lovely, aptly peachy nectarine characters with a subtle minerality on the palate. Displays slightly more generosity than usual, as you might expect, but it's still held with precision and poise, with that fine flinty minerality and subtle oyster shell character defining through to the finish. A really first-rate wine, this.

A wine to get lost in, to wander through admiring an ever-changing scene of scents and flavours, high notes and bass tones. The Gingin clone at full stretch, barrel fermented in French oak, wild yeasts working, generosity is on show but also a compelling fineness to the detail. Seamless from the scent on aromas of peach, nectarine, citrus, sea spray, a striking citrus peel note surrounded in baking spices. It’s drinking beautifully right now, open and expressive with arresting tangerine peel, Meyer lemon, orange blossom and citrus peel spikes lifting the fruit. Chalky in texture it comes tightly packed in flavour and life.

There’s a lot of energy and drive here, even if the wine’s tightly coiled; give it time to unfurl, allowing the aromas and flavours to reveal themselves. Then, expect grapefruit, lemon, match-strike flintiness, sweet spices and cedary oak with a slip of creamy/nutty lees. It leaves an impression, and it’s an excellent, lasting one at that. 96+

Very light yellow colour, a reserved wine developing slowly. There are almond meal and malt aromas, the palate zesty and tangy with electric acidity, lemons and limes, zingy and alive, the concentrated fruit flavour likewise piercing and prolonged on the finish. Tastes like a blocked malo wine, and is quite exceptional.

Xanadu are in the zone right now, and this Chardonnay plays into it. High-toned with lashings of white grapefruit and lemon pith leading to nougat, white peach and delicate cedar, with faint green mango skin in the background. Seaspray minerality adds both freshness and lift alongside further savoury appeal. The palate is poised and calm — lovely even texture with a gorgeous flow of white peach, lemon juice and grapefruit peel. Cedar sits firmly in the background as waves of lemon-drenched acidity and finespun chalky phenolics draw the wine long to a finish of freshness and energy. Out of a particularly warm and early vintage, Xanadu have masterfully preserved tension and drive. Very good.

Fruit intensity and resultant length are the key here. Indeed this is emphatic from start to finish. It tastes of grapefruit and green pineapple, cedar and chalk, tonic-like herbs and gravel, and both aromatically and on the palate it feels imposing, alive and impressive. This drills straight and sure at quality, start to finish, nose to glass. It’s a wine that will not be denied.

2025 MARGARET RIVER WINE SHOW

JAMES HALLIDAY AUSTRALIAN CHARDONNAY & CABERNET CHALLENGE