Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay 2020
- 95
- $39
- Drink by: 2021 - 2030
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Tapanappa founder/winemaker, Brian Croser, calls the 2020 vintage “unique.” Despite COVID, bushfires and a severe frost in his beloved Tiers Vineyard in the Adelaide Hills, he uses the word in an upbeat way. Flowering and fruit set in the vines were affected by cold weather. That means a small crop. That’s a tick for potential quality. Then ripening occurred in ideal autumnal weather, “perfect cool, dry, sunny conditions.” All of this goes a long way towards explaining why this $39 chardonnay is a real zinger offering a celebration of beautiful fruit.
Honeysuckle, stone fruits, apple, mango skin and vanilla greet the nose. For me, the palate – creamy, leesy and long – is all about the mouthfeel, the way the wine streams over the tongue and lodges in the memory. It’s light on its feet, the acidity is filigree fine and the citrussy, melon fruit is juicy and fresh. It’s raring to go right now.
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.
