Vasse Felix Heytesbury Chardonnay 2023

Offers a great sense of grace and elegance. A cool, very dry season like 2023 brings its own perception of character and fineness, but the vineyard selection of fruit and winemaking a la Virginia Willcock-style with its own touch of originality, takes Heytesbury to another level altogether. There is a complexity you could jump over, but the drinker never feels alienated or overwhelmed such is the utter drinkability at the heart of the wine with its layers of floral aromatics, citrus, stone fruits, fig, baked quince and warm-hearted creamy oak. Throughout, a savoury thread endures, a tantalising trip that is gently earthy, gingery, wild and textural. Heytesbury is one delicious, amazing taste sensation.

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