Whicher Ridge Margaret River Whitetail Sparkling Chardonnay 2016
- 88
- $38
- Drink by: 2021 - 2023
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It’s refreshing to see an Australian sparkling wine labelled varietally rather than using French terms. Hence, for its new sparkling release, Whicher Ridge has chosen the term sparkling chardonnay over blanc de blancs.
Grapes were sourced from the Clairault vineyard in the Wilyabrup sub-region of Margaret River, and the name of the sparkling – Whitetail – refers to the whitetail black cockatoos that visit Whicher Ridge daily. It’s another nice Aussie connection to this sparkling.
The wine was on tirage for 15 months, so expect a degree of yeasty, bready autolysis. A reserve wine – 12% of a 2015 barrel-fermented chardonnay – was added, too.
The result is the scent of fresh-baked biscuit and almond bread sitting side by side in harmony with honeysuckle, white peach and lemon. This sparkling offers a lot of developed flavour; it’s generous in nougat, honey, stone fruits with a flash of oyster brine-rockpool to close. Acidity is keen and lemony which brings everything up fresh, but the overall tasting impression is of fruit. Texture, too.
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.
