Bicknell FC Applecross Chardonnay 2025

25 July

Bicknell FC Applecross Chardonnay 2025
A$65, 13.5% alcohol, screwcap, Yarra Valley.

Grown on the Diamond Valley Vineyards/Punch/Lance’s Vineyard site at St Andrews – now under new ownership – in the Yarra Valley. The chardonnay vines here were planted in 1985 (all clone P58). Poor spring flowering saw, again, a small crop, which means that only 170 dozen of this wine was produced. It’s going to go fast. Even faster, I suspect, given that Bicknell is hot off the press.

This 2025 Applecross Chardonnay will be released in September 2026. Forget the news link above; this wine, itself, is sensational. The land is the brand and Bicknell himself has always been an exquisite exponent of exactly that but, even so, Bicknell himself is such a strong brand, built over decades of application, that you basically should buy anything he makes, from here.

To the wine.

I’m getting peach, I’m getting lemonade, I’m getting cedar, mineral, curry leaves, par and flint. All this is built in tandem with over- and under-tones of vanilla, cooked apple, crushed fennel and chamomile. It’s fresh and energetic, in nature, but it’s also a masterclass of texture and composure. When I wrote the piece on Bicknell’s departure from Oakridge recently, it smashed site-traffic records here. It did for a reason. Bicknell makes bloody great wine, and the goodwill that his wines have built is bloody huge. Drink this wine and know why. $65? Really. If you can buy a dozen, do. If not, any bottle that you can. 96 points – Campbell Mattinson.

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Campbell Mattinson

This post was written by Campbell Mattinson. Mattinson is a former chief editor of the Halliday Wine Companion book, former editor of Halliday magazine, former editor of Australian Sommelier Magazine and founder of The Winefront business. He is the author of five books on wine – four of which were bestsellers (The Wine Hunter, the Big Red Wine Book 2008, the Big Red Wine Book 2009, and the Big Red Wine Book 2010).

Mattinson is also the founder of the Mattinson Photography business.

Campbell Mattinson has been an independent journalist, wine critic and photographer for forty years. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award; is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter; and is the author of the best-selling novel We Were Not Men. He’s also a winner of a St Kilda Film Festival Award (as writer-director) and is a former winner of the national Best Australian Sports Writing Award. In 2026 three of his photographs were short-listed for the World Food Photography Awards.

Campbell Mattinson, who is 100% independent, has tasted between 5000 and 10,000 wines each and every year for the past 25 years. He tastes blind, in comparative brackets, as often as is practicable.

Campbell Mattinson is a journalist, a photographer, a filmmaker and a wine critic. In all of these mediums his prime motive is to tell people's stories.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com

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