2014 Tolpuddle Chardonnay, Coal River Valley

Huon Hooke: The Real Review March 22: 'At a recent corporate event, I was asked to name one wine which had stunned me lately, a wine that lovers of the world’s finest should crawl over broken glass to get at.

The Tolpuddle 2014 Chardonnay, was my reply. This is the Australian wine that has most impressed me in recent months – and there have been many.

The first release of Tolpuddle chardonnay and pinot noir from the 2012 vintage were superb, but the ’14 chardonnay is the best wine yet in my view. It’s a gloriously refined, racy, mesmerisingly intense chardonnay, which has more in common with top Chablis and the finer Côte de Beaune wines than Australia. If great chardonnay is a miraculous intersection of power with finesse, this is a great chardonnay. It is multi-layered; so complex it keeps you in its thrall to the last drop. Like a great Puligny, its aromas haunt the glass long after the wine is gone.'

Tolpuddle Vineyard was founded in 1988 by Bill Casimaty, Gary Crittenden and Tony Jordan. The new owners since 2011, cousins Martin Shaw and Michael Hill-Smith (Shaw & Smith), were on a look-and-see jaunt in Tasmania when they became smitten by Tolpuddle's Coal Valley location and mature vines, planted only to pinot noir and chardonnay.

The wines are made by Shaw & Smith winemaker Adam Wadewitz (ex Bests).