2020 Giant Steps, Wombat Creek Chardonnay, 6x750ml

Giant Steps is a privately owned, estate based, Yarra Valley grower and winemaker that has forged a reputation for delivering some of Australia’s most consistent, over-performing, varietal wines. The Giant Steps Single Vineyard range is produced from the most site-expressive fruit from the best vineyards, in great years. Their aim is to express in each wine the character of the site, grape and vintage, and this they achieve by meticulous work in the vineyard and minimum intervention in the winery. Head winemaker Steve Flamsteed and his team are making some of the best wines in Australia from these sites.

The grapes for this wine come from Wombat Creek vineyard, the highest altitude vineyard in the Yarra Valley at 420 metres above sea level. This makes it an ideal location for the production of cool climate wines. It was originally planted in 1988 with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir with the intention of producing base wine for sparkling production, but over the years has gradually transitioned to being used for table wine. The ferrous-based volcanic soil produces a distinctively soft yet long and firm palate.

The 2020 season was a bit of a rollercoaster, beginning with a very cold winter into a cool wet spring, a dry and warm December and then a mild February/March punctuated by a few rain events. The cool spring delivered very low yields across the Chardonnay blocks, primarily driven by tighter, smaller bunches – the consequence of which is naturally high acidity and fresh savoury flavours.

All of the fruit was hand picked, whole-bunch pressed and coarse settled to 500L French puncheons. Fermentation took place with indigenous yeasts. There was no battonage. The wine was then moved to tight grain French oak (20% new, 80% older) where it spent 10 months. It was coarse filtered and bottled by gravity.