Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown Brunnen Chardonnay 2024

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown Brunnen Chardonnay 2024.

Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown Brunnen Chardonnay 2024
AU$70, 13% alcohol, DIAM cork, Beechworth.

This is an unusual chardonnay, in the best of ways. It’s straw in colour – which isn’t unusual – and carries a flavour profile that is so much more savoury than is customary, and it delivers this flavour profile with an effortlessness that is extraordinary. It’s the drinking equivalent of sleight-of-hand. It’s silty, succulent, salty and umami-like, with grilled pear, peach, apple and almond notes teamed into a milky, juicy softness. It’s quite something. It has an earth-like, peppery grain to the finish, which should compete (or contradict) with that silty softness, but doesn’t. I’m amazed. This wine isn’t massively intense, but it’s glorious.

96 points – Campbell Mattinson.

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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