"Super refined and cool peach and grapefruit aromas with gently flinty minerally accents. The oak adds a smoky edge. The palate has powerful driving fruit with punchy acid presence and a super long, fine and mouthwatering core of citrus and just-ripe white stone fruits. Grilled hazelnuts to close. Superb chardonnay."

“Super refined and cool peach and grapefruit aromas with gently flinty minerally accents. The oak adds a smoky edge. The palate has powerful driving fruit with punchy acid presence and a super long, fine and mouthwatering core of citrus and just-ripe white stone fruits. Grilled hazelnuts to close. Superb chardonnay.” (#14 of Top 100 Australian Wines of 2018)

A warm and drier than average season has resulted in richer and more intense flavours of stone fruit, ginger flower and preserved lemon. More complexity and depth from winemaking inputs such as whole-bunch pressed and fermentation in French oak with lees stirring throughout a 9 month period. Yet this never feels besieged, as the natural acidity glides across the palate reining everything in. A pleasure to drink.

"With this vintage, the Shaw & Smith-owned Chardonnay, always very good, is now top of the Tasmania class: floral yet intense, ripe stone fruit on the palate, oak and acidity in perfect balance - everything is here."

"Full, sleek body with strong smoky character and ripe apple and mixed citrus aromas with a long clove and cinnamon spice on the length. Captures the essence of Aussie Chardonnay thanks to the generous ripeness, but wraps it in a modern, aerodynamic shell. " (17.5 points out of 20)

"Produced by Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith MW, of the well-known Shaw + Smith label, fruit from Tolpuddle Vineyard in the Coal River Valley comes from vines planted in 1988. The region’s climate is cool and dry, the vineyard well-known in Tassie for its exceptional quality. Their Chardonnay, more than the Pinot, showed incredible tension with breadth."