2025 Tapanappa Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay, Adelaide Hills

The producer notes 2025 as a vintage of extremes, a true roller coaster ride with the driest growing season morphing into one of the warmest and earliest vintages on record. Each vintage produces its own personality and in the Piccadilly Valley Chardonnay’s case, it is a ripe richness that immediately saturates the senses. It’s one lovely, complex, warm and cuddly Chardonnay. Aromas are open and inviting: yellow peach, nectarine, lemon zest, leesy mealy notes, grilled cashews, nougat with a lemon sorbet zing. Flavours evolve into a smooth celebration of everything citrus with lemon, grapefruit, pastille and zest to the fore in harmony with stone fruits, baked quince, grilled nuts and a gentle woody spice. It’s definitely a forward style for the region and the producer and is superb drinking now, but the potential remains for short to medium term aging. Drink 2026–2033.

95 points Jeni Port for Wine Pilot, February 2026

There's a lot of richness and warmth to this wine. The designated, labelled 14.5% may be a furphy, but there's distinct breathiness, soupy texture, ripe fruit character and a kind of booze-soaked fruit and nut note that feels pervasive. Sure, the fleshier, pulpier impact of ripe and dried stone fruit, coconut water and nougat all feel apt in the frame, but one can't help but think what may be if a little tension and extra freshness landed in this wine. 2026–2029.

91 points Mike Bennie for Halliday Wine Companion, March 2026

Light-mid yellow; oatmeal and smoky oak aromas, the wine is tensioned and focused with precise lemon and chalky mineral flavours that extend tight, lean and long on the palate. Lipsmacking dry, crisp, refreshing finish. Drink 2026-2033.

91 points Huon Hooke for the Real Review, March 2026

Brian Croser planted Chardonnay in the Piccadilly Valley in 1979 — the first vineyard in the Adelaide Hills since the nineteenth century. Those vines are now over 40 years old, yielding a modest four tonnes per hectare, and this wine is what they produce. For a producer whose Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay is considered one of Australia's finest, the Piccadilly Valley bottling sets a bar that most producers in the country would be quietly pleased to call their best.

The 2025 vintage was the warmest, driest and earliest on record at the winery — a notable shift from the run of cool seasons since 2020. That warmth shows in the wine's generosity. Whole bunch pressed directly to French oak, one third new, five months on full lees. The approach stays the same; what changes is what the season brings.

Pale straw with a green tinge. The nose is layered and inviting — white peach, lemon zest, a hint of grapefruit and subtle toasty oak. The palate is rich and textured with good underlying freshness, stone fruit at the fore, a creamy mid-palate and bright acidity keeping everything composed through to a long finish. More generous than cooler vintages, but the structure is there for those who want to wait.

Works well at the table across a wide range — Japanese scallop dishes, Korean tofu jjigae, a simple Cantonese steamed fish, roast chicken or a good vegetable tart. Or just cold, before dinner has been decided.

Drink now through 2030.