Hoddles Creek Estate Chardonnay 2021

93+ Points Campbell Mattinson

Hoddles Creek Estate was established in 1997 when the D’Anna family decided to establish a vineyard on the property that has been in the family since 1960. The vineyard sits astride Gembrook road and adjacent Hoddles Creek. Its steeply sloping blocks prohibit mechanical harvesting, with both vineyards being hand pruned and harvested. All their wines, which are single vineyard, estate grown, are made in their 300 tonne winery, constructed for the 2003 vintage. The split-level winery has a barrel store located three meters underground.

All fruit is hand-picked in the morning and immediately de-stemmed and lightly crushed into the press. No enzymes are used; instead the juice is allowed to settle naturally. There were approximately fifteen different ferments, these were allowed to start naturally on full solids. After a select period of time, some of the juice was inoculated with cultured yeast then transferred to wood for fermentation. The wine is then left on lees for approximately 11 months. Just before bottling all clones are blended, cold stabilized, fined and filtered.

“It is what it is: the chardonnay you should buy, for any night of the week, for any occasion. It’s chardonnay in a style that somehow manages to straddle various streams; it’s an arthouse chardonnay that crosses over into the mainstream. It does because it has flavour but it also has drive; it’s fresh and zippy but its stonefruit-and-apple flavours have bite. It’s the Yarra Valley with a nod to Chablis in a way; it has that easy I-don’t-need-to-try-too-hard confidence. There’s oak but it’s not boosted by it. There’s flavour but it’s chalky and taut. It is in short a gift that keeps on giving.” – 93+ Points Campbell Mattinson, Winefront