2021 Tapanappa 'Piccadilly Valley' Chardonnay

96 points , Andrew Caillard, The Vintage Journal
Pale colour. Attractive white peach, apricot, nectarine, grapefruit aromas with tonic water notes. Creamy textured and buoyant with abundant stonefruit, grapefruit flavours, fine slinky/ al dente textures, underlying nougat, hint aniseed notes and fresh long acidity. A very expressive chardonnay showing perfectly ripe fruit and superb precision. An earlier drinking style but should keep for a while. 

94+ Points, Gary Walsh, The Wine Front
If you’re into statistics, and detailed weather information, then Brian Croser is the man for you. Being English, and specifically Northern English, anyone who knows me well will know that weather observation is a wonderful source of interest for me.
Classic Hills Chardonnay, is probably a good way to describe it. It has flavour and fruit, and an underlying savoury character. Cashew and peach, aniseed, cinnamon and cedar oak, ripe grapefruity acidity, a little chalkiness to texture, and a nutty juicy peach and spiced pear flavour carrying on long clean finish. So excellent. Drink 2022-2028.

94 points, Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
The Tapanappa 2021 Chardonnay is layered with concentrated Chardonnay flavor: curry leaf, yellow peach, salted preserved lemons and pink grapefruit, even. The phenolics in the mouth are grippy and attractive, and the wine fairly streams over the tongue and spools out to a long and lingering finish. Yes! Excellent.

Vintage Notes from the Winemaker:
I have described the 2021 vintage in the Piccadilly Valley as “near perfect”. Like 2020, the 2021 vintage was marginally warmer than average. What a relief to have two successive cooler vintages, (indeed 3 as I observe the evolving 2022 vintage), after the near unrelenting warmth of the previous decade of vintages.

The Chardonnay crop was very modest in the Piccadilly Valley at 5 tonnes/hectare, not because of the flowering conditions in November 2020, but because the previous vintage had experienced very bad flowering conditions, reflected in low fruitfulness of the shoots bearing the 2021 vintage.

The Chardonnay grapes on the 37-year-old vines of our Piccadilly Valley vineyards, ripened in still and cool air, sunny conditions, ideal autumnal weather. The seven-month growing season heat above 10ºC (Growing season degree days – GDD), was 1233ºC days versus the long-term average of 1076ºC days, most of the difference derived from the warm spring.

The old vines of our Piccadilly Valley vineyards yielded up their precious crop on the 29th of March.