TarraWarra Swallowfield Chardonnay 2024

Written By Campbell Mattinson

TarraWarra Swallowfield Chardonnay 2024
$80, 13% alcohol, screwcap, Yarra Valley.

There’s a new era at TarraWarra with Sarah Fagan making the wines, Samantha Isherwood as the GM and Chris Beard as the viticulturist. Exciting times. This single vineyard release – and its Southern Slopes Chardonnay 2024 sibling – is the first sure or major sign that changes have been made; the Swallowfield Vineyard is at Gembrook in the cool Upper Yarra, which is something of a statement. We’re going cooler. We’re going for refinement. Which is nothing against the previous era at TarraWarra, which had multiple high points over a long period of time.

This wine. It’s a beauty. It’s going to mature like an absolute darling. It has a shell-grit aspect, and a softness to its acidity, and an understatement, and a creaminess, and a long, slow, confident exhalation of flavour through the finish. It has a crisp water-colour aspect and yet it does not want for flavour. It’s not chardonnay 101, it’s chardonnay 303. It’s a couples of grades up. Stash it for two more years, and then drink over the next ten. 95 points.

Last year the new era of TarraWarra was featured in this article.

I’ve just tasted the TarraWarra Swallowfield Pinot Noir 2024 for The Winefront and that’s an exciting Pinot Noir if ever there was one.

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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