2025 Tolpuddle Vineyard Chardonnay

97 Points - Dave Brookes, Wine Companion

“Tight and intricately detailed, as always, with bright citrus, peach and white nectarine fruits overseen by a mist of flint and struck-match complexity. Hints of grilled hazelnuts, almond butter, vanillin oak, clover blossom, crushed riverstone, creme fraiche, ozone, oatmeal and sea spray. Lightly textural, with a beautiful taut mineral line, the flavours precise and drawn out along its length. This has a tight mineral cadence, a touch of apple-skin pithiness, preserved lemon, nougat and a pristine, sustained finish with a flair of umami. This is a producer and a site that is in the finest of form. No wonder the French are nervous - once again, world-class Australian chardonnay.”

97 Points - Tom Kline, Wine Pilot

“A good winter of rain in 2025, on the long-term average, set things up well; warmish flowering brought a strong fruit set, well-timed rain worked its magic through the Coal River Valley, and a mild summer followed - overall cooler than 2024 on the data, delivering good yields and quality. This is a wine that has, since Tolpuddle's first release in 2013, become one of the benchmarks for Australian Chardonnay - taut, mineral, and precise in a way few sites in the country can match. There's such allure to the perfume as the wine relaxes in the glass. Cashew cream and white flowers hover above pure and precise fruit - white peach, salted grapefruit, preserved lemon, makrut lime. There's some saline oyster shell minerality and whispers of fine cedar bringing savoury complexity. The trademark flinty reduction permeates but not aggressively at this stage of the wine's life. On the palate, there's both power and precision with a lovely creamy texture cut up by tensile saline acidity and chalky phenolic drive. The fruit notes mirror the nose, carried very long with that classic Tolpuddle crystalline drive and some preserved lemon brininess drenching the close with salinity. Top flight Tolpuddle Chardonnay here. Power and precision in equal measure, and a balance that will see it age brilliantly.”

97 Points - Campbell Mattinson, campbellmattinson.com

“This edition of Tolpuddle Chardonnay is a classic in the making. It has three key features: unforced complexity, an impression of effortlessness, and outstanding length. It tastes of iron, grilled peach, lemon, tonic water and nougat, though there's an underpinning of umami and a subtle flintiness in play too. It's all quite exquisite. It's all quite fabulous.”

95 Points - Gary Walsh, The Wine Front

“As ever with Tolpuddle it's a tight and racy wine, offering savoury nuance, plenty of flint and struck match, a saline oyster shell character, spicy cinnamon oak, fennel, and a bright and tangy acid bite. It's not huge on flavour, but does have a lime, white peach and green olive and a little creamy almond richness. The finish is bright and long, with citrus rind and a quinine bite to close. It's a style that will tickle the fancy of many, for sure. It builds some weight with time in the glass, so I'd suggest there's a fair bit more to come here once it settles into bottle.”