Tolpuddle Vineyard Chardonnay 2018
-
James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Enthusiast
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
This wine is true to the Tolpuddle Vineyard Chardonnay style: fine and precise with firm acidity, and a combination of lightness of texture and intensity of flavour. The 2018 vintage has the natural acidity you would expect but is approachable, with flavour in the lemon citrus, lemon soda, lemon pith, spectrum. This refined cool climate Chardonnay suits many different plates, but we find it to be a perfect match with pan-fried sea scallops.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
An exceptional chardonnay with a wealth of very fresh and slightly flinty lemon, grapefruit, white-peach and grilled-hazelnut aromas. The palate has such grace and well-defined, pure lemon and grapefruit, as well as white and yellow peaches. The toasted-hazelnut afterglow is stunning. Hints of praline, too. So elegant, pristine and pure. Exceptional. Drink or hold. Screw cap
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The similarities between this 2018 Chardonnay and the 2017 before it are stark. Both are firm, savory, concentrated and intense—almost painfully so in the mouth. The joint approach of acid and fruit are woven together in a DNA strand of completion that descend on the palate and coordinates an attack so precise that it stings. It simultaneously lingers in the mouth and the memory. The fruit is wrapped around a core of acid and crouches on the mid-palate. This is a sensational wine in every respect of the term. Best After 2022
-
Wine Enthusiast
The Chardonnay from this single-vineyard, southern Tasmanian site is a rich, polished bottling that will please many a Burghound. The nose leads with notes of roasted nuts, toasty oak, struck match and saline amid lemon curd and pineapple rind... Oak and saline characters dominate flavor wise, but there's balance, structure and fruit purity, too.
Other Vintages
2022-
Australian Wine
Companion -
Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling
- Decanter
-
Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling -
Wine
Spectator -
Wine
Enthusiast
-
James
Suckling -
Australian Wine
Companion -
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Enthusiast -
Wine
Spectator
-
James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Enthusiast
- Decanter
-
Robert
Parker -
James
Suckling
-
James
Suckling -
Robert
Parker
-
James
Suckling -
Wine
Enthusiast -
Robert
Parker -
Wine
Spectator
-
Robert
Parker -
Tasting
Panel -
Wine &
Spirits
-
Robert
Parker
Tolpuddle Vineyard was established in 1988 and it took its name from the Tolpuddle Martyrs: English convicts transported to Tasmania for forming an agricultural union. The leader of the Martyrs, George Loveless, served some of his sentence working on a property near Richmond, part of which is now Tolpuddle Vineyard.
The vineyard is planted with mature Chardonnay and Pinot Noir vines, facing north-east, and sloping gently up from Back Tea Tree Road. The soil is light silica over sandstone and of moderate vigour, ensuring well-balanced vines producing grapes of great flavour and intensity.
In 2006 Tolpuddle Vineyard won the inaugural Tasmanian Vineyard of the Year award, reflecting the performance of this unique and distinguished site.
Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith MW purchased the vineyard in 2011 and are fully committed to seeing Tolpuddle Vineyard recognised as one of Australia’s great single vineyards.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Directly south of the city of Melbourne and the Mornington Peninsula wine region, the cool-climate island of Tasmania has earned an honorable reputation as the country’s finest producer of Sparkling Wine. Naturally the region also excels in top quality still wines from Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Riesling, all distinguished because of a high natural acidity. Most of the Tasmania vineyards cluster around the eastern side of the island from north to south.