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Heytesbury Chardonnay
The 2024 Heytesbury Chardonnay leads with toasted cashews and white peach, pink grapefruit and preserved lemon rind, all of it woven together by saline acidity. There's pressed linen, white flowers and wax, too. The palate is textural and shapely (something of a house style at Vasse Felix), and the length through the finish is long. While this may not have the precision and focus of the 2023 Heytesbury, it has personality, texture, line and power, and I love it for all of those attributes. What a superstar wine. It was fermented 100% in French oak, with 85% of the volume in barrique and the balance in puncheon. The total percentage of new oak was 53%, and the wine was matured for 10 months, followed by six months post-blending in tank. It will be released globally on May 1, 2026. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. *** The Heytesbury Chardonnay release is emphatically one of my favorite Chardonnay releases (globally) each year. My criticism of it—I've been open about this to the abundantly talented winemaker, Virginia Willcock—is that this wine is released too early. Despite the release being pushed back six months or so, I still find myself drinking older bottles and being absolutely and totally blown away by them. On release, I merely love them. 2024 in Margaret River was a challenging year. It was record-breakingly hot and dry, although it bears noting that most of the vineyards in Margaret River are planted on their own roots—and of those, most were planted last century, so the vines do have a certain amount of inbuilt resilience to above-ground weather events. This wine, it also bears noting, is brilliant every single vintage. The wines are reflective of the year and the sites, but more than that, they speak of the purity, drive and power inherent in Margaret River Chardonnay. They are an asset to Australian wine.
