Tasting Profile
February 2023
Kooyong Estate Chardonnay comprises fruit from our Faultline and Farrago blocks. It offers an overall expression of 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 gently whole-bunch pressed directly into French oak barriques and 350L barrels (17% of which were new) where fermentation commenced 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.
Brightly aromatic with lively notes of lime, grapefruit citrus and citrus blossoms, and hints of white stone fruit flesh. Its complexity is enhanced by subtle notes of cashew, nougat, and flint, adding to its overall charm. The palate is fine, long and detailed, intricately woven with flavours of citrus and stone fruit, carried gracefully by a refreshing acid line. There is delightful tension and balance, accompanied by nuanced phenolics and a creamy mid-palate texture derived from careful lees ageing. The wine ends with a crisp and invigorating finish, leaving a lasting impression of freshness and intensity.
13.5% alc
Tasting Profile 2023
Tasting Profile 2021
Tasting Profile 2020
Reviews
Wine Pilot, August 2024
Jeni Port
Plenty of citrus spring and bounce immediately upfront joined by aromas of white peach, nectarine and a touch of vanilla. Acid drive is a marvellous feature of this wine, bright and super fresh, an excellent platform for ripe, citrus and summer fruits. There’s a gentle texture here, too, along with equally gentle spice notes and background mealy oak. While ageing is undoubtedly on its mind, it makes for top drinking right now.
95 points
The Real Review, September 2024
Stuart Knox
Light lemon colour. Fragrant stone fruit and pineapple on the nose, hints of bacon fat underneath. Powerful yet not weighty on the palate, a core of ripe fruits with nutty oak complexities building along the flow. There’s ample acidity to control that power and as it carries very long.
94 points
The WineFront, February 2025
Gary Walsh
I love the intensity of fruit flavour here. It’s both searing and juicy at once; the pear flavours are ripe and generous but then the citrus, grapefruit, flint and nectarine characters tear through the palate in the most dramatic of ways. This wine has quality written all over it. It’s textural, it’s complex and it’s long through the finish.
94 points
Jancisrobinson.com, March 2025
Tamlyn Currin
Planted in 1996 in Tuerong, north-facing, 100–120 m, on well-drained, low-vigour, sedimentary clay loams. Sustainable viticulture. Hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed, spontaneous fermentation in a variety of puncheons and barrels, 18% new oak. Bitter orange, pith and peel. Smoky and yet open and generously welcoming. Love the bitterness, ripe and firmly structural, threading through the wine. So much texture here! Very exciting.
17 points
Halliday Wine Companion, March 2025
Jane Faulkner
A great year for Chardonnay, so check this out. Flinty and fine, lightly aromatic and flavoured with lemon and peel, nougat, aniseed and ginger spice. The palate fleshes out with nutty, creamy lees yet remains neatly composed; it’s still on a tight rein of acidity.
95 points
Vinous, June 2025
Angus Hughson
The 2023 Estate Chardonnay is a finely tuned expression, its grapefruit and chalky tones lifted by touchers of gunflint and seasoned oak. The wine is elegantly styled with subtle citrus flavours and zesty acidity that carry through a lingering finish.
91 points
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.