It’s not hard to see the reasons why this 2015 Tiers Adelaide Hills Chardonnay is on point. A famous vineyard in the Hills (one of the oldest), with a legend of the industry making the wine and a wine that is comfortably settled in style.
Please, keep delivering complex, tight, rich-but-taut Chardonnay like this Australia.
As to the wine, Brian is famously detail-focused, and there is great background info on the Tapanappa website. Well worth a look if you’re interested (I love that context. Throw winemaking notes at me wine world).
Despite a very dry vintage in the Hills (40% of normal rainfall), this 2015 Tiers Chardonnay doesn’t lack acidity or freshness. The opposite. Fermented and matured in 1/3 new French oak, and that oak stamp is one of the first things you notice. It’s not obtrusive, but it is a prominent character on a nose dominated by white peach and lemon lime. What makes this work is the contrast behind firm, grapefruit acidity (less malo this vintage?) and ripe fruit weight.
This is wine in motion – and arguably a bit too taut for drinking this year – but at every step is top flight stuff. I drank most of the bottle, and was marvelling at the ‘bones’ the whole way through. Score could well be conservative next year.
Best drinking: 2017-2021. 18.5/20
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