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Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay 2015

Tapanappa, South Australia, Australia

Tapanappa
South Australia Australia
  • 93
    Points
  • The 1 466 best
    of 3 290 954
    wines globally
  • 7 Pros of
    7 recommend
    this wine
14 93
  • Taste
  • Moment

  • Country ranking ?

    188

  • Producer ranking ?

    9

  • Decanting time

    45min

  • When to drink

    now to 2030

  • Food Pairing

    Wild Salmon with Herb Butter and Spring Vegetables

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The Story

Typically, the Tiers Vineyard is hand harvested in the last week of March to the first week of April.

A normal analysis of Tiers Chardonnay grapes at harvest is:

Sugar: 23.5 Brix

Total Acid: 8gpl 

pH: 3.1

The tiny bunches are selectively hand harvested into 0.3 tonne slotted trays and put into the cold room at the Tapanappa winery at the bottom of the vineyard. After 24 hours in the cold room the fruit at 2C is tipped as whole f...

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Wine Information

Vintage Notes

2015 welcomed the Croser family back into the Tapanappa Winery and the Piccadilly Valley blessed us with a typical cool weather vintage of exemplary quality. The winter provided average rainfall and replenished the subsoil, but from August to December very dry conditions prevailed, The Tiers Vineyard receiving just 40% of normal rain.

The three spring months and December were much warmer than average, only exceeded by the t...

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

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Written Notes

An impressive site, and sight, the Tiers Vineyard. Planted back in Brian Croser's beloved Picadilly Valley back in 1979. If you're ever in the Hills, do ensure you take time to visit the cellar door and soak in the view back toward the drive you came down.

Peach, figgy, cashew, cream and spice

Lots going on with a palate presence that builds and builds. Meyer lemon, creamy presence, spicy oak. It has nuttiness, a texture, presence, a lingering significance that seems to just give. 

Acidity is balanced, yet it still needs time to settle. That said, It's an impressive wine. 93

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  • 93p

Bright, light yellow colour. Fresh, buttery nose with complexity and vividity. Dry, very crisp acidity followed by gentle and refined oaky flavours and pungent lemony fruitiness. Very pristine style oaky cool climate chardonnay with long citrussy finish. Bit austere at this stage but will evolve rounder in further ageing. With this concentration and acidity, this wine can last easily 20 to 30 years. If served now, decant well in advance at least for 3 hours.

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  • 90p

It’s not hard to see the reasons why this 2015 Tiers Adelaide Hills Chardonnay is on point. A famous vineyard in the Hills (one of the oldest), with a legend of the industry making the wine and a wine that is comfortably settled in style.

Please, keep delivering complex, tight, rich-but-taut Chardonnay like this Australia.

As to the wine, Brian is famously detail-focused, and there is great background info on the Tapanappa website. Well worth a look if you’re interested (I love that context. Throw winemaking notes at me wine world).

Despite a very dry vintage in the Hills (40% of normal rainfall), this 2015 Tiers Chardonnay doesn’t lack acidity or freshness. The opposite. Fermented and matured in 1/3 new French oak, and that oak stamp is one of the first things you notice. It’s not obtrusive, but it is a prominent character on a nose dominated by white peach and lemon lime. What makes this work is the contrast behind firm, grapefruit acidity (less malo this vintage?) and ripe fruit weight.

This is wine in motion – and arguably a bit too taut for drinking this year – but at every step is top flight stuff. I drank most of the bottle, and was marvelling at the ‘bones’ the whole way through. Score could well be conservative next year.

Best drinking: 2017-2021. 18.5/20, 94/100+. 13.6%, $79. Would I buy it? I’d be sorely tempted.

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  • 94p
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Information

Origin

Piccadilly, South Australia
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