Austins Moorabool Valley Geelong Chardonnay 2024
- 92
- $55
- Drink by: 2025-2031
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A very fine single vineyard Chardonnay from the Moorabool Valley in Geelong, the team usually incorporate around one-quarter to one-third new French oak in the maturation. It has also seen some malolactic fermentation. Just 6,900 bottles made, the final blend is a barrel selection. A gold straw hue, the nose is deeply aromatic and quite forward. Rich, with some early complexity, we have notes of peaches, stone fruits and mango. The wine has a creamy texture, appealingly supple, and the palate gives us a touch of oatmeal with good length. A Chardy which goes against the trend of the leaner examples so prevalent today, and that will make many people very happy. This will provide pleasure over the next three to six years. Over that period, one can confidently expect the score to edge up a point or two.
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.
