Tasting Profile
April 2025
Kooyong Estate Chardonnay comprises fruit from our Faultline and Farrago blocks. It offers an overall expression of the variety from the Kooyong vineyard, with parcels of fruit from various soils and mesoclimates blended together to create the Estate label. Year after year the same parcels are consistently chosen, giving this wine an underlying likeness across vintages.
The grapes were hand harvested and then gently whole-bunch pressed directly into a mixture of French oak barriques and puncheons (20% of which were new) where fermentation occurred spontaneously with ambient yeasts. Following fermentation, the wine was aged on lees (without battonage) for 11 months. It was bottled without fining and with minimal filtration.
Bright and fresh aromatics lead, with fruit notes of grapefruit and lime citrus that verge to white stone fruit flesh, complemented by notes of citrus blossom and lemon curd. Its complexity is enhanced by subtle notes of roasted cashews, creamy nougat, and flecks of flint, adding to its overall charm.
A detailed and fine palate with intricately woven flavours of citrus and stone fruit, carried effortlessly by a bright line of acid. Nuanced phenolics provide tension, while a creamy mid-palate texture derived from careful lees ageing adds complexity and overall balance. The wine ends with a crisp and invigorating finish, leaving a lasting impression of freshness and intensity. While drinking well now this wine will benefit from further cellaring into the medium term.
13.5% alc
Tasting Profile 2024
Tasting Profile 2023
Tasting Profile 2021
Reviews
Wine Pilot, May 2025
Jeni Port
Potential plus! In the rush for immediate drinking gratification, the potential for further ageing with Chardonnay is often overlooked. This is one wine that asks you to stop and consider what might be. The deep fruit concentration, the role of toasty oak and the still developing nature of the wine might be something you might wish to consider. A sheen of stylish toasty oak roams widely with vanilla pod, woody spices, stone fruits, melon and an attractive savoury note of preserved lemon, all dressed in super bright acidity. The first instinct is to consider more time in the bottle. The second instinct is to wonder just how long? How’s your patience level?
94 points
The Real Review, June 2025
Aaron Brasher
Bright, lively, mid-straw in the glass. Lifted aromas of grapefruit pith, white flowers, wet stone, just-ripe white stone fruit and nougat. Pithy, focused, crunchy and layered. There’s real snap and texture to the fruit, with plenty of drive, cut and presence. Long, and layered, with nutty oak working seamlessly with the precise fruit.
95 points
Winsor Dobbin, June 2025
Winsor Dobbin
Talented winemaker Tim Perrin continues to produce some outstanding, Burgundian-accented chardonnays and pinot noirs using fruit from the Kooyong vineyard at Tuerong on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. All the Kooyong wines are made from domain-grown, hand-picked grapes at the estate winery. This brand-new release is disturbingly drinkable. I was sure I had only had a couple of sips, but the bottle was suddenly half empty. Kooyong boasts of sustainable viticulture and low-impact winemaking and this offers classic cool-climate chardonnay citrus/stone fruit flavours, hints of cashew and stony minerality, along with very bright acid. Beautifully balanced and charmingly assured for a wine so young, this paired amiably with some pork chops/aubergine and potato bake.
The WineFront, July 2025
Campbell Mattisson
This delivers. It’s powerful, it’s complex and it’s long. It tastes of grapefruit, sweet pear, cedar, milk, flint and meal. It hits up from toad it keeps on hitting, though the finish hones dramatically and well. Beautiful chardonnay. Top class.
95 points
Matthewjukes.com, August 2025
Matthew Jukes
Like its Pinot Noir stablemate, this is a gloriously well-appointed wine, clearly made from stunning fruit and yet it has been encouraged to accept a forward stance and a duty to perform at the highest level without any warm-up! It bursts from the blocks on the nose and palate and hits every mark with aplomb. The perfume alone is worthy of applause, and the length on the palate matches the very best. In between, the fruit is sleek, sultry and magnetic. It is indulgent and controlled: how many Chardonnays can achieve this from Mornington with this acid profile and in-built tension while drinking from day one? The answer is none that I know of, apart from this stellar wine.
18.5 / 20
The Vintage
The Vineyard
The Kooyong vineyard is located on the Mornington Peninsula at Tuerong, on Miocene sedimentary soils. Our wines are made from domain grown, handpicked grapes and aim to manifest terroir: the integration of our geology and soils with the macroclimate of our region, the mesoclimates of the various sites within our vineyard and the weather of the annual grape growing season. Our cultural operations in the vineyard and practices in the winery endeavour to articulate these unique characteristics diligently, respectfully and without artifice.