Sunday 1st of December “Piccadilly Pick-a-Dozen
10am - 1pm, Tapanappa Winery. Load up the car with wine for the festive season!
Taste and buy wines from Terre a Terre /DAOSA, Tapanappa, CRFT, Barratt Wines and Greenhill WInes.
Sausage sizzle, coffee, cherries and flower stall!
The greatness of Tiers shines, even in vines just 10 years of age. I love its lemon blossom fragrance, white peach concentration, tense magic acidity and seamless French oak, but most of all I love its fine, mineral, flinty texture.
95 points.
Brian Croser certainly doesn't need any introduction to those who worship Bacchus, as his name is synonymous with Australian fine wine. Tapanappa began its life in 2002 with a partnership between Brian and Ann Croser and Bollinger of Champagne and the Cazes family of Lynch Bages in Pauillac, Bordeaux; no denying the pedigree involved here.
The Tiers vineyard was planted in 1979, the first vineyard planted in the Adelaide Hills region in the 20th century. It's certainly a special site, producing wines that consistently rank among the finest examples of the variety in this country. 2014 was a cool vintage in the Adelaide Hills and it is immediately apparent after the first sip that this is a wine of great restraint and elegance.
The 2013 Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay has just taken out a Master award at The Drinks Business 2015 International Chardonnay Masters.
You can read the full competition report here: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2016/03/chardonnay-masters-2016-the-re...
About the competition:
The Global Masters is a series of blind tasting competitions, drawing in entries from across the world. One of the key elements to its success is the quality and the dedication of the judges involved.
THE good news is this is a top- quality chardonnay; the bad news is it there was only a small batch produced. My advice is to get online and grab a bottle or two of these today.
96/100
Top note of lime. Crystalline structure. Lots of acidity and definition. Still very youthful. Rather like a Chablis grand cru in structure. Wait!
16.5 points
Medium to full yellow colour. A complex but youthful lanolin, wool, nut-toffee and lightly floral bouquet gives entrée to a tight, slightly shrill, high-acid palate. Very fine, tight and long. The acidity is almost a tad overdone alone, but with the right food it would sing. Fruit does the talking: the complexing factors are there but well in the background. A very smart wine which will improve with cellaring.
96 points
An extremely intense and focused wine; the fruit is a blend of citrus, stone fruit and apple; the barrel ferment inputs and oak maturation have been swallowed by the fruit. Needs several years to relax and open for business.
94 points
Drink by 2028
Destemmed, crushed and chilled for a 4-day cold soak, 10 months in French barriques (30% new). Light colour, but with a bright hue; the flowery bouquet of spice, rose petals and small red fruits is followed by a light, perfectly balanced palate, the promised red fruits duly delivered; the finish is long and in lockstep with all that has preceded it.
95 points
Drink by 2023
Wine of the Week
If you are looking for a chardonnay with precision, purity and linearity you won't go wrong with the delicious cool-climate chardonnay grown on a vineyard that veteran winemaker Brian Croser describes as producing fruit that provides "a pure expression of terroir". The vineyard site is 450 metres above sea level at Piccadilly in the Adelaide Hills and this is made entirely from the Tiers old vines planted in 1980. It shows no sign of 2013 having been a warmer than average year. French Vosges oak barriques (33% new) and partial malo play second fiddle to the quality fruit here; ripe stone fruit characters duel deftly with grapefruit and minerally acid notes to produce a wine that is refined and elegant. An Australian classic.
Brian Croser has produced another statuesque chardonnay that balances richness and generosity of flavour with tightness and brisk acidity. Superb.
96 points.
Definitively sophisticated in its sleek profile, offering satiny curves of ripe stone fruit, green apple and sexy, nougat-scented oak, the wine feels molten and flowing over it's impressive length, but doesn't forget to cleanse the palate with revitalising acidity. There's a sense of a wine captive in its youthful shell too; a portent for its impressive cellaring future.
94 points
