The 2022 Estate Vineyard Chardonnay follows hot on the heels of the perfect 2021 release, and in doing so, it has big boots to fill. Aromatically, the wine leads, as all Giaconda Chardonnay's do, with white flowers and notions of campfire and charred gum leaves, cracked white peppercorns and white peach, salt and caper brine. Crushed and salted nuts, enoki mushroom, shaved fennel, torched pink grapefruit ... the cavalcade of flavors march on across the palate. In this season, the wine is altogether more quietly nuanced and placid than the sleek, powerfully focused 2021 vintage. However, in so saying, this wine is balanced and fine, somewhat less overtly reductive (although still imbued with that salivating characteristic), populated by softer-spoken fruit and yet no less sapid or palate staining. It is in the mouth that the pedigree of the wine comes to the fore. The chalky texture and the penetrating intensity of flavor in combination are what make this wine so great, as I see it, and the 2022 vintage provides a gentle framework within which the wine exists. This is a gorgeous, elegant, precise and detailed release of this magnificent wine. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. The Giaconda Chardonnay is as revered within Australia as it is without. The style feels to me to be 50% by hand and 50% by vine (the only winery in Australia to beguile me so with this construction), although when you consider the philosophies within the winery, this can hardly be right. Wild yeasts for fermentation and malolactic fermentation, maturation in French oak, minimal sulfur addition and bottled unfiltered. The winery and cellar are set up for gravity flow. The fruit is grown in "gravel, clay soil in the foothill of the Victorian Alps," handpicked, crushed, then basket pressed (a process less commonly undertaken in Australia, although common in Burgundy) prior to being transferred to oak (30% new) for maturation. The wine is distinct and of the vineyard. I always get a bush-smoke/camphor/eucalypt/struck-match character to these wines—more or less pronounced depending on the vintage—and when tasted blind in an Australian tasting, these characteristics ALWAYS point to Giaconda. When tasted in an international context, I am usually taken to Grand Cru Puligny, which leaves me chuckling afterwards. These wines are not easy to procure, but they are cheap by international standards. A national treasure to be sure. Drink 2024 - 2042.
Source: Robert Parker.