Tapanappa Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay 2020
- 96
- $90
- Drink by: 2021 - 2035
Share
If chardonnay is indeed making a comeback, it’s through wines like these where much of the excitement dwells. The trio of Tapanappa Adelaide Hills chardonnays are about cool climate viticulture, attention to detail and commitment to a style that is very much about projecting the quality of the fruit in any given vintage. The Tiers is the high point in the chardonnay collection, the one that creates the buzz or, what winemakers call, “the halo effect.” Its high status brings added sheen to the lesser priced wines.
A quiet elegance lives here. Don’t overchill this wine or you will lose that inner beauty. The scent of white flowers mixes with fine-edged fruit qualities of grapefruit, Delicious apple, mandarin skin and dusty lemon. Citrus plays out on the palate with a grapefruit pithiness before moving into a warm, textural glow. Oak is nicely integrated. It’s complex and worthy of extra time in the cellar. If you can, give it that time.
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.
