Decades Chardonnay 2024

Decades Chardonnay 2024
AU$80, 13% alcohol, screwcap, Tasmania.

Decades Chardonnay is the fruit of a friendship – between Steve Flamsteed and Brad Rogers – that goes back, as the name gives away, decades. The two have bought a vineyard in the Coal River Valley of southern Tasmania. This is the second release of a Decades Chardonnay.

For all of this wine’s power and length, finesse is its main calling card. It's ultra fine-boned. It tastes of lemon, thistles, white peach, almond cream, hay and honey, with a finish like bacon and cream in a pan seeded with fennel. The texture, throughout, is satin. I tasted this wine over the course of an afternoon and it barely budged — though the sunshine of it did creep up over the horizon; cool, modest, sure, blue light in with the yellow. This wine, I am quite certain, will develop into the most commanding of chardonnays.

96 points – Campbell Mattinson

See also [Best Australian Chardonnay]