Vignerons Schmolzer & Brown 'Thorley' Chardonnay 2024

From the home block ‘Thorley’ and typically Chablisien with great minerality and tension. The wine remains chiselled and taut yet enveloping with generous mid palate stone fruit and rolling length. From experience this bottling only deepens and reveals greater delights with time. Mitch Milicich, FWC

The scene is set by all sorts of zesty fruit, baked goods and nuts. Lemon tart, macadamia biscuits, almond nougat, to name a few. The wine is tight on the palate, with a saline tension cutting through a lemon curd texture with a stony aftertaste. The fruit is mostly firm and crunchy: white nectarine, sour apple and aromatic pear, with a hint of something more intriguing: cherry blossom, rice pudding, custard apple or even a hint of guava. Beautiful composition, a wine that makes you coming back to ‘check’ more detail and you find something new each time. It certainly has that ‘je ne sais quoi’ quality to it. 95 pts, Kasia Sobiesiak