Squitchy Lane Vineyard The Key Single Vineyard Chardonnay 2019
- 93
- $55
- Drink by: 2022-2029
Share
The fact that Squitchy Lane mentions each individual wine’s cellaring potential on back labels gives some insight into its winemaking modus operandi. By logical extension, it builds wines to age. It is suggested, for example, that The Key “can be cellared for up to twenty years.” I would comfortably agree to 10 to 12, and let’s see where the wine heads after that. Accordingly, The Key is all about structure, with acidity quite linear in delivery, but that’s not the entire story. It’s quite a smart, finely-tuned wine with a solid core of pure fruit. With that in place, the winemaker’s life is definitely made a little easier. Aromas of grapefruit, lemon, delicious apple layered between white nectarine make an immediate impression, a positive one. It’s also well focussed in flavour concentration with good potential for further ageing thanks to a lemon-juicy acidity. It’s all here, just waiting.
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.
