2025 Patrick Sullivan Woori Yallock Chardonnay, Yarra Valley

The 2025 Woori Yallock Chardonnay hails from the superb Lusatia Park vineyard, and the wine exhibits all the nutty freshness and lacy acidity that we have come to expect from this (elevated) corner of the Yarra Valley. There are notes of cashews, green apple, white peach, freshly pressed linen and white flowers. This is a beautiful, mouthwatering, textural Chardonnay, as all the Patrick Sullivan Chardonnays are. Drink to 2035.

96 points Erin Larkin for The Wine Advocate, April 2026

While there’s no shortage of pristine acidity encasing this, it’s a seemingly richer, riper style in terms of flavour, with white peach, clotted cream with buttered toast, oak spices and preserved limes. A wine of many layers and needs more time to reveal them. Drink to 2036.

94 points Jane Faulkner for Halliday Wine Companion, April 2026

Medium yellow colour; buttery croissant and gently toasty aromas, some dried fruit and subtle smoky traces also, the palate incisive and tense with a cut of acidity and phenolics that leaves a firm grip that adds length and a clean crisp finish. A leaner, racier wine than the Gippsland chardonnays and different in shape, needing more time. Drink to 2038.

93 points Huon Hooke for The Real Review, March 2026

The fruit for this wine came from the Lusatia Park Vineyard in Woori Yallock. The site was planted in 1985 with vines standing in steeply sloping red basalt with a northerly aspect at an elevation of 240 metres.

The fruit was handpicked, whole bunch crushed and drained to stainless steel for settling. Fermentation took place in oak barriques of which 30% were new, with the wine staying in the barrels for a total of eleven months during which it was lees stirred weekly post-primary fermentation until it had gone through full malolactic conversion.

Enjoyable on release, this should look splendid with a bit more time in the bottle. Decant if opening now to allow plenty of air and enjoy with roast butterflied spatchcock, preserved lime-herb butter, asparagus and peas.

About this producer

Patrick Sullivan is a Gippsland-based Chardonnay-specialist whose focus is on single vineyard expressions of volcanic sites within the local Baw Baw Shire. Fruit is also bought from exceptional growers in Yarra Valley, Henty and the Limestone Coast.

Patrick lives with his wife Megan and their children on Tumblestone Farm in Ellinbank. The property houses his winery and will also provide his currently negociant-modelled business with estate grown fruit in the long term.