Seppelt Drumborg Vineyard Chardonnay 2021

Even in a good year like 2021, there’s no escaping Drumborg’s racy acidity. It stands sentinel over the ’21 chardonnay, guarding the wine’s structure and fruit intensity as it continues to age, and bringing a lively minerality in its wake. It’s a mainstay of the wine, a feature, that almost – almost – threatens to dominate the wine. Look a little closer and there is a subtlety, too, working its way to the surface.  Red apple, grapefruit pulp, lemon zest, peach skin aromas. A tight, clenched fist of citrus fruit joins almond meal, quince on the palate, the latter a real lip-smacking feature. It must be said that the winemaker regards “mineral acidity” as a hallmark of the region. It’s a worthwhile distinction because that mineral-ness brings a touch of complexity and tension to the chardonnay, something that makes it quite out of the ordinary. It is to be celebrated.

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