Swinney Margaret River Chardonnay 2025

From the Swinney’s new project in Margaret River, the fruit comes from their vineyard, purchased in 2022, which sits on the banks of Wilyabrup Brook. The Chardonnay in this vineyard was planted in 1984 and is the Gingin clone. The planting density is 2,800 vines per hectare. The team picked a wonderful vintage to kick things off, 2025 proving to be yet another exciting year in the region. The fruit was a whole bunch into French oak barriques, 25% of them new. The wine then spent nine months on lees with 25% undergoing malolactic fermentation. As with all Swinney wines, production is limited to several hundred cases, so do not hesitate. The colour is a gleaming yellow gold. It is immediately obvious that even in Margaret River terms, this is an elegant and refined style of Chardonnay. On the nose we have aromas weaving through gentle stone fruit touches, hints of cashew, melon, florals and a flick of peach pit. There is just a hint of chalky earth in support, well in the background. The wine is beautifully textured, has balance, precision and length, with good energy and a lingering finish. This will easily provide pleasure over the next eight to ten years.

Ken Gargett

Contributor at Winepilot

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.

Wine writer and critic