There’s a slot in the Australian Wine and Drinks Review fridge where I always like to keep a classic white wine. Something for drinking, not tasting, that I’m going to enjoy drinking at any moment if I feel like it. Not a ‘break in case of emergency’ wine, but more ‘I’m thirsty and don’t want to fuck around’.
Either of these two Chardonnay releases can sit in that slot, no worries.
Besides wanting to drink the Ghostgum Vineyard Chardonnay 2023 & Tapanappa Tiers 1.5m Chardonnay 2024, the really interesting part is how these two identically priced, high-quality white wines go about things.
Let’s have a look at the wines first:
Ghostgum Vineyard Chardonnay 2023
Let’s climb the mountain of high-end Mornington wine again, hey? Everything so far from the Southern Light Vineyards project has been a winner, with the 2023 Pinot Noir spot on, which was a step up on the super 2022 releases. What is most impressive about this Chardonnay is the power – it’s a wall of a wine, bound up in and phenolic density, yet topped off with lively acidity. That push-pull power and tang contrast is what helps Corton and other wildly expensive white Burgundy to seduce strangers, and it’s in abundance here. Pear, fig, a little caramel and peach (though you wouldn’t call this ripe and full) on first whiff suggest opulence, but it’s otherwise a grapefruit and pear-driven wine, with contained concentration the order of the day. Refreshing, robust but not heavy, and properly intense, it’s a white wine of unbridled ambition looking the goods.
Best drinking: drinkable now, likely better with another year or two in bottle. 18.7/20, 95/100. 13%, $90. Would I buy it? Sure would. Even the packaging looks like a $90 Chardonnay. Yes, yes please.
Tapanappa Tiers 1.5m Chardonnay 2024
In recent years, the 1.5m Chardonnay from Tapanappa has stepped out from the ‘original’ Tiers Vineyard wine (this one) and might have even overtaken it. The 1.5m bit is a reference to the space between the rows, with one point five metres in between rows positively squishy in Australia, where big, wide, tractor-friendly spacings are the name of the game. The (2003-planted) 1.5m block is only metres from the 1981-planted ‘Old Block’ (incidentally the first plantings in the Adelaide Hills modern era), and with the vines now approaching 25 years old, it’s unsurprising that we’re hitting prime days. Oh yes, this is excellent wine. In a world of lean 12.5% Chardonnay, this leaps above the pack with 13.7% alcohol to take a huge speccy. It’s bold, with a punch of vanilla oak to welcome you to proceedings, and a palate that takes some time to unfurl. It’s a babe. But a bold and outsized babe, that feels punchy, with layers of grapefruit and white nectarine fruit simmering below the surface, the acidity a last grip alongside some oak tannins to remind you of the absolute youth. This has such a presence – a big time, big game wine that will still win premierships in a decade’s time.
Best drinking: great now, likely even better in five years. 18.7/20, 95/100. 13.7%, $90. Would I buy it? It’s a very safe bet to buy some now, and some for later.
So what makes these wines taste how they do?
Here’s where things get fun. It’s so instructive (for me at least) to lay out a pair of similar, high-class wines and work backwards to understand how they tick. On a pure quality basis, there isn’t much difference between these wines either, making it more of an interesting comparison exercise (and a subjective choice) rather than a case of picking a winner. It’s even more interesting when you see just how similar the production process is for both wines (even if we’re just working on an overview of the process from the winery tasting notes).
So, shall we get our winemaking hats on?
For starters, both of these wines use grapes that are picked and then left in the cool room overnight before pressing. There’s plenty of evidence that overnight chilling preserves aromatics and minimises oxidation. It’s hugely space and energy-intensive, though, because you need a cool room big enough to hold pick bins and the cooling system to back it.
The next similarity is that both of these wines were whole-bunch pressed, which means hand-picked grapes go into the press stems and all, with the turbid, typically brown juice then transferred to barrel for fermentation and maturation without clarification. It’s a technique known as keeping wine ‘on solids’ that is often associated with better mouthfeel in finished wines (and, interestingly enough, more fruit sweetness and more alcohol thanks to extra glycerol). Full solids can be tricky, however, as you can get more potential for ‘stuck’ ferments (when yeast start to struggle converting grape sugars into alcohol), more potential for oxidation, increased hydrogen sulphide production (which in small doses delivers the reductive funk, while in high doses create rotten eggs) and less esters (which are important aromatic compounds).
You can see the influence of the full solids fermentation in barrel on the texture of these Chardies- there are layers of nutty, waxy layers of complexity and interest here, but neither is what you’d think of as aromatic wines. Indeed, they’re more yeasty, leesy and textural than fragrant or even wildly varietal.
What’s also interesting is that neither the Ghostgum nor the Tiers 1.5m spends a long time in barrel. I believe it’s ten months maturation for the Mornington wine, and seven months for the 1.5m, which is a shorter stint than was the Chardonnay norm even ten years ago. Just one third of the oak barrels are new as well, and the reduced time in oak and more older barrels means you’re going to get less obvious vanilla bean young wood flavours, and I wouldn’t say that either wine is obviously oak-forward (though oak is part of the recipe for complexity). There’s a distinctive oak profile to all of Brian Croser’s Tapanappa Chardonnay wines (that I quite like), which feels like it’s a known flavour and I’d probably more likely gravitate to a Tapanappa Chardonnay in a blind lineup unconsciously as a result. We can mark that down as classic familiarity bias in action.
While I don’t have the stats on hand, I’d also guess that most of the Tapanappa didn’t go through full malolactic fermentation (MLF), and a portion of the Ghostgum definitely didn’t. By stopping this natural secondary bacterial fermentation (which sees lactic acid bacteria consume malic acid and turn it into lactic acid), you tend to retain more lemon citrus and grapefruit flavours, and less ‘buttery’ creamy richness. I’d hazard a guess and say more of the Ghostgum went through MLF, as you can see just a little more creamy roundness to the acid profile, though there isn’t much in it.
The final piece of the puzzle here is chemistry. The Tiers 1.5m has a pH of 3.0 and total acidity (known as TA and expressed in Australia in grams per litre of tartaric acid) of 7.58 with an alcohol of 13.7%. The Ghostgum has a pH of 3.2 and a TA of 7.8 with an alcohol of 13%. Side by side, those are very similar numbers, with the higher acidity and higher pH of the Mornington wine balancing out the lower acidity but lower pH of the Adelaide Hills wine. The alcohol could play a part, though – I see just a bit more warmth on the finish of the 1.5m, and alcohol also adds a perception of sweetness too (although both wines are clearly technically dry).
Which of these wines should you buy then? Get at least a bottle of each and compare the pair, just like I did. It’s a wine exercise you won’t forget.
