2019 Yattarna
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Tasting notes
From Tasmania, Tumbarumba and Adelaide Hills. What a mix of provenances! Struck-match nose! Lean and racy. I like this style (which is very different from earlier vintages) but not everyone will. Like a mouthful from a mountain stream. Long. (JR)
Critic scores
Average Score
Jancis Robinson MW
Richard Hemming MW, jancisrobinson.com
More reviews and scores
The 2019 Yattarna Chardonnay is flinty and reductive, with a toasty sulfide-riddled palate. There are notes of marmalade on cold toast, white flowers, green tea/matcha, white peach, pineapple lumps and clotted cream. The struck-match quality of the palate is beguiling to some (to me), and this carries through to the long finish. What a pleasure.
57% Tasmania, 32% Tumbarumba, 11% Adelaide Hills. Barrel-fermented. Powerful flinty aromas and smoky oak. Stylish, lengthy, perhaps less full than it used to be, but far from lean. You could slip this into a top-end burgundy tasting and nobody would blink. (RH)
Full screwcapped bottle a hefty 1,555 g. Funny that this, the 25th vintage, has the same appellation as Australia's cheapest blends! Fruit from Tasmania, Tumbarumba and Adelaide Hills. Matured for eight months in French oak barriques (55% new, 45% one year old). Pale greenish straw. Really savoury and attention-grabbing with a little struck-match reduction. Streets ahead of the 20A 2020 – but then 2020 was an extremely difficult vintage. Attractive refreshing ripe passion fruit on the mid palate and an agreeable chalky texture on the finish. Pleasure in spades already. (JR)
About the producer
Penfolds is Australia’s most famous wine producer, known best for their iconic top wine, Grange. First produced commercially in 1952, Grange has since gone on to become one of the world’s most famous fine wines. In 2001, the wine was listed as an Australian heritage icon.