Alex Head The Contrarian Chardonnay Adelaide Hills 2025
- 92
- $40
- Drink by: 2026-2032
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Chardonnay from the Balhannah sub-region in the Adelaide Hills, Alex includes wines in his Contrarian Series when he has been able to experiment and innovate. For this wine, he moved from the Eden Valley to the Adelaide Hills and sourced enough Chardonnay for an initial release of 50 dozen. The vineyard was twenty years of age. The wine was whole bunch pressed into barrel and fermented with indigenous yeasts. Maturation was for eight months in one-year-old French puncheons and a further three months in stainless steel. Cleaning yellow/lemon, the nose offers hints of cashews, peaches, lemons, grapefruit blossoms, a touch of flint and florals. Neatly balanced and rather elegant, there are hints of a smoky lime note just creeping through. Good juicy acidity running the length, this is an attractive style for enjoying over the next six years.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
