Best Australian Chardonnay
No white grape variety better encapsulates the face of modern Australian wine than chardonnay. This is not news; every Australian wine critic, me included, has been banging the Australian chardonnay drum for the past 10–15 years. But it bears repeating, because it remains true, and because it keeps getting truer: chardonnay is the variety Australia now does best. The transformation over two decades – from broad and blowsy, through lean and mean, and out into the balanced, at times flinty, fruit-sure wines of today – is the great redemption story of Australian wine. When I was chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion we tasted more than a thousand chardonnays for a single edition; my final Wine of the Year there was a chardonnay. There is now no reason to drink an Australian chardonnay that isn't world-class. The wines below have earned their place on this page the only way possible: in the glass.
The best Australian chardonnay wines, as I taste them
Every time I score an Australian chardonnay at 94/100 points or higher, it earns the Best Australian Chardonnay tag and appears here automatically. This list is dynamic; it updates as outstanding wines cross my desk. It is not influenced by wineries, retailers or advertisers.
Updated: July 2026.
About this page
What qualifies a wine for this list? Every wine on this page scored 94/100 or above in a published review by Campbell Mattinson. The list is generated automatically from the Best Australian Chardonnay tag – when a new chardonnay review meets the threshold, it appears here without manual curation. No winery pays for inclusion.
What does "best Australian chardonnay" mean? Chardonnay is arguably the variety Australia now does best. The wines on this list are drawn from Australia's leading chardonnay regions – the Yarra Valley, Margaret River, Beechworth, Tasmania, the Adelaide Hills and the Mornington Peninsula among them – though outstanding chardonnay in Australia can, and does, come from anywhere.
Who maintains this list? Campbell Mattinson is an independent Australian wine critic: former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion, former editor of Halliday magazine, founder of The Winefront (est. 2002), and the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. All reviews are conducted independently.
Page maintained by Campbell Mattinson. Last updated July 2026.
"This is seriously good." Campbell Mattinson's 96-point review of Elanto Chardonnay 2024, from one of Australia's most densely planted vineyards.