2019 BK Wines Swaby Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills

Fermented wild in one and two-year old barrels, where it spent 10 months with regular stirring. The result is an intense, richly flavoured wine that belies its lowish alcohol with a billow of dried fig, tatami and mineral, forceful and energetic across the palate to virtually sublimate any obvious fruit references, aside from the feel of ripe extract. A textural totem.

95 points Ned Goodwin MW winecompanion.com.au

The beautiful Swaby vineyard has been yielding stunning fruit for 30 years and we feel pretty blessed to have been making wine from her grapes for a third of that lifetime. This vintage’s offering is not unlike previous Swaby showings: it begins with powerfully flinty aromas belying a nuanced, tiered palate. Flavours of crunchy green apples and boiled sweets are layered gently on a fine, linear scaffold.  The back palate, by contrast, is marked by light salinity and the bitter hint grapefruit pith. A little shy but with such clean expression and fabulous length, it will last and last. Sometimes when we sit down to taste and ponder, we know we’re repeating ourselves… but that’s because we’ve found what we’re looking for and we’re happy to do it again and again.

100% Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay, handpicked, wild-yeast fermentation.