GIANT STEPS TARRAFORD VINEYARD CHARDONNAY 2021

Winery notes (2021 Vintage)
"100% hand picked – a spectacular year with every block and clone contributing to the final blend. Whole bunch pressed, juice transferred to barrel by gravity with no settling. Fermented in 500L French puncheons. A small amount of bâtonnage and 20% malolactic fermentation. Maturation for 10 months in new and used French oak – 20% new, 80% older, Taransaud, Mercurey and D&J."

96/100 Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front (2021 Vintage)
"Sweet oak into white stonefruit, citrus and apple, grapefruit. Powerful from the outset. Hand picked, whole bunch pressed, full solids for all of the single vineyard releases. A bit of mlf for all of them too. This is in impeccable – not to mention incredible – shape. Controlled. Powerful. Tarraford should be the most rich, for site and aspect, but it’s so taut, almost salty in its savouriness. Cracking wine. The ‘loudest’ of the single vineyards in that it brings the flavour but simultaneously so very, very good. Drink 2023 – 2030+."

95+/100 Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate (2021 Vintage)
"The 2021 Tarraford Vineyard Chardonnay comes from the Tarraford Vineyard—it is the most northerly vineyard in the collection and is planted to the P58 clone, planted in the 1980s. The fruit was originally intended as sparkling base and was being sold to Chandon. The fruit now goes solely toward table wine Chardonnay, and in this case, we are able to see for potential in the glass than merely sparkling base. This is a south-facing vineyard in a warmer area in the Yarra, which brings an attractive combination of streamlined linearity and a fine, mineral, nutty, briney character. In the mouth, the wine cascades across the palate, leaving a trail of white flowers, pink grapefruit and the faintest sense of caper brine through the finish. Very cool. Drink 2022 – 2035."

95/100 Philip Rich, James Halliday Wine Companion (2021 Vintage)
"The warmest site of the 4 Giant Steps single-vineyard chardonnays, but planted on a south-facing slope in Tarrawarra. As with all of them, this was whole-bunch pressed and barrel fermented 15% new French puncheons). A fuller, bright, green gold. Quite restrained with aromas of stone fruits, oatmeal and a little wet rock. I like both the intensity and restraint on the palate and this may, paradoxically, need the longest of the 4 single-vineyard 2021 chardonnays to open up. Drink by 2028."

95/100 Christina Pickard, Wine Enthusiast (2021 Vintage)
"The original of Giant Step's single-vineyard wines, this vintage of Tarraford strikes a lovely, lucid balance of oyster shell and briny goodness, with toasted cashew, vibrant, ginger-flecked melon and preserved lemon. The palate is both linear and focused but also mouthfilling, with salty, crystalline acidity and just the right amount of oak and lees influence to lend power, texture and complexity without wrestling out the fruit. A harmonious, classy drop, this is drinking well now but is capable of another seven to eight years in bottle."