Decades Coal River Valley Chardonnay 2024

There is no doubt that something special is happening with this site in Tea Tree in the Upper Coal River Valley thanks to the efforts of old mates Steve Flamsteed and Brad Rogers. It's a beautiful wine. It feels unfettered and unadorned by artefact, with pure nectarine, citrus and pithy grapefruit at its base. There are suggestions of spiced oatmeal, stone, clover blossom and some vanilla and struck flint further back in the mix. It’s the palate that grabs you though, with its swell of poised stone and citrus fruits, the slink of pithy texture with a precise, slatey composure and wickedly mineral acidity that seems to pull the wine across the palate with grace, focus and pitch-perfect velocity. (96) DAVE BROOKES, Halliday Wine Companion

This is a wine of power and length but 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 that tastes like bacon and cream in a pan seeded with fennel. Its texture, throughout, is like satin. I tasted this wine through the course of an afternoon and it barely budged, though sunshine did creep up over the horizon; cool, modest, sure, blue-light in with the yellow. We’re in elite territory here. Drinking this is like being invited to the birth of someone or something special. I’d call this wine an example of decades of expertise but really it’s a grape variety in a deeply southern landscape that’s been beautifully and sensitively caught. (95+) CAMPBELL MATTINSON, The Wine Front

Very light, bright green-yellow hue; intense lime-juice, nut and spice aromatics over grapefruit/citrus and the wine is delicate and light-bodied, fresh and invigorating on the palate. Medium concentration and length. A lovely lighter style of chardonnay with some very appealing fruit tones. HUON HOOKE, The Real Review