Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley 2025 Chardonnay

Despite the warm, dry vintage, the Piccadilly Valley has again defined a very special Chardonnay, from three 40-year-old vineyards on its western slopes.

The 2025 Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay has a significant green-yellow colour. The terroir’s distinctive aroma is of very ripe yellow peach and fresh fig. The flavours are ripe and rich with trademark significant texture and despite the warm year, the acid provides a cleansing finish to balance the ripe fruit flavours.

The product of a unicorn vintage, 2025 Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay demonstrates the resilience of the Piccadilly Valley terroir expression in extreme climatic conditions.

Vintage Notes

The 2025 vintage in the Piccadilly Valley was the warmest, driest, and earliest vintage on record. The growing season accumulated 1620°C-days versus the average of 1105°C days, more than the other two outlier warm vintages, 2016 and 2018.

Unlike 2016 and 2018, elevated night temperatures contributed significantly to the high 2025 heat summation and there were no heat waves. The 2025 Chardonnay crop was about average in the Piccadilly Valley at 7 tonnes/hectare, promoted by a warm and dry flowering in mid-October.

The Chardonnay grapes on the 40-plus-year-old vines of our Piccadilly Valley vineyards ripened in early autumn, thanks to dry and sunny conditions. These old vines yielded their precious crop from March 5 to 11, the earliest ever—three to four weeks ahead of average.

Winemaking Notes

The hand-harvested Chardonnay grapes from our 40-year-old Piccadilly Valley vineyards were chilled in trays in the cold-room to 2°C. The cold grapes were tipped into our gentle airbag presses and the whole fruit pressed juice was pumped to tank before being gravitated to French oak barriques (one third new) for fermentation.

The fermentation lasted two months in the cool autumn conditions. The wine was barrel-aged on full lees until October of 2025, when it was clear racked from barrique and bottled in November.

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