Coldstream Hills Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2020
- 92
- $35
- Drink by: 2021-2027
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The team at Coldstream Hills under winemaker, Andrew Fleming, source grapes from across the Yarra Valley to make this delicious, and excellent value, Chardy. They see citrus flavours, ‘with mineral slate notes and length’ coming from the Upper Yarra, while the vineyards in the Lower Yarra provide fruit which is ‘fleshier in style with attractive white peach and quince characters’. For them, the blend works. And it really does. The wine is barrel fermented, before ageing in French oak barriques, puncheons and vats for up to nine months, prior to blending and bottling, with 30% of the oak new.
A green gold colour. The aromas flood out of the glass as soon as the wine is poured – melon, stonefruit, peach, nuts, a hint of lemon meringue and a gentle nudge of oak. It is finely balanced and has serious persistence, accompanied by underlying acidity. There is a most appealing creamy texture. This is very good now, but expect it to step up even further over the next five to six years. This exceeds what we might have expected from the vintage, but you could say that about all of the 2020 Chardonnay vintage from Coldstream Hills.
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.
