Woods Crampton Buttery Chardonnay 2024

Mattinson review of Woods Crampton Buttery Chardonnay 2024.

Woods Crampton Buttery Chardonnay 2024
AU$12, 13% alcohol, screwcap, Limestone Coast.

After the runaway success of the Big Bear Californian Chardonnay 2022 through Aldi liquor channels here we have another contender in the same space, this time from Australia’s Limestone Coast region (in beautiful South Australia) and at the hand of the Woods Crampton crew, who have an excellent track record of delivering what wine drinkers want. My colleague Gary Walsh (at The Winefront) has already reviewed this with a score of 87/100, which might not sound high but is pretty decent given that we’re looking at a $12 wine.

The problem with these Buttery Chardonnay wines in general, in all honesty, is that despite the name, they’ve never really buttery enough. More butter please. To get genuine buttery richness you probably need higher grade grapes and oak to start with though, which is never going to happen at $12. That aside, in value terms, this wine gives the “best value buttery chardonnay in Australia” market a shake. It tastes of peach, mint, honeysuckle and cream, with a general kind of “butteriness” infused throughout. It’s fresh. It’s remains pretty crisp. It’s not rough. And it feels balanced. The value is 100% good.

87 points.

Campbell Mattinson

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He founded The Winefront, is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion (and former editor of Halliday magazine), and is the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is 100% independent, and tastes between 5,000 and 10,000 wines each year, blind and in comparative brackets as often as is practicable.

More about Campbell Mattinson

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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Big Bear Californian Chardonnay 2022