Juniper Cornerstone Karridale Chardonnay 2020

In a word, delicious! Takes some cool Karridale fruit in the Margaret River region and delivers a real wow of a Chardonnay. The wine has the region’s signature Gin Gin clone (aka Mendoza) written all over it in its beachy, sea breeze scent and plush fruit. Stone fruits aplenty, particularly nectarine, with layers of red apple, citrus, mandarin skin, nougat. Love the French vanillin oak underlay to the sun-ripe fruit, which really adds an added flavour dimension and degree of sophistication. The palate has a smooth sense of contained power about it, very Margaret River, enlivened by a juicy acidity. That acidity becomes the key to the wine’s future which should be a good decade in length. Very well-judged winemaking on display here.

Jeni Port

Wine critic at Winepilot

Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.

Wine writer and critic