2021 Bass Phillip Estate Chardonnay 1.5L

96 pts
Ripe and powerful Gippsland Chardonnay, with great texture and a certain French je ne sais quoi.

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Sale price$290.00
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Description

The Estate Chardonnay is the heart of the Bass Phillip range – a wine that shows the class of the Leongatha site without pushing too hard. Now made under Jean-Marie Fourrier and Adam Francis, it keeps the focus on balance and clarity rather than richness.

2021 was a cool, even vintage in South Gippsland, giving clean fruit and great natural acidity. The grapes were hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed and wild-fermented in mostly old French oak, then left on lees to build a bit of texture before bottling unfiltered. Nothing overworked, just careful, thoughtful winemaking.

It’s bright and calm in the glass – lemon, white peach, a touch of hazelnut and gentle oak spice. The palate is pure and nicely weighted, with crisp acidity and a smooth, savoury edge. It’s elegant, subtle and quietly confident, the kind of Chardonnay that grows on you with every sip.

96 points - "While there are layers and layers of flavour within, there’s also a fine line of acidity keeping this not so much tight but reined in. There seems to be more detail and focus of late, even the colour is a glorious gleaming pale straw. Flavours of stone fruit, ginger spice, grapefruit and pith and fluffy creamy lees with cedary/spicy oak."
- Jane Faulkner (Halliday Wine Companion)

Grapes were whole bunch pressed directly to barrel
for a natural fermentation in a temperature controlled
environment. A 30 ppm SO2 addition at pressing to
each barrel. We choose extra tight grain oak barrels
with a light toast, 24% were new barrels for the Estate
Chardonnay blend. Towards the end of fermentation,
barrels were topped up and over the course of time
given an occasional stir with topping up every week. All
barrels underwent malo-lactic before adding a small
amount of SO2. Wine stayed in barrel for 14 months.
The Estate is a selection of barrels from the Leongatha
vineyard. The barrels are gently gravity decanted off
the settled lees via a tap inserted near the bottom of the
headboard of the barrel to tank. No fining of any sort,
but coarsely filtered to bottle in July 2022.

Price Bracket $101 and Above
Type White
Body Full Bodied
Variety Chardonnay
Country Australia
Region Gippsland
Australian State VIC
Feature High Score
Iconic
Reviewed By Halliday Wine Companion
Critic Score 96
Size 1500ml
Vintage 2021
Closure Cork

Bass Phillip

Phillip Jones founded Bass Phillip back in 1979 and in the intervening years built a deserved reputation as one of Australia's best producers of Pinot Noir. For decades Jones farmed his Gippsland plot with adherence to organic and biodynamic farming, the meticulous attention to detail in the vineyard yielding some of Australia’s truly world class wines.

So, it was only fitting that one of France's greatest Pinot Noir producers, Jean-Marie Fourrier, should take on the winemaking mantle as Phillip eased into retirement.

These are wines of power, personality and persistence, and need a place in every true collector's cellar. Bass Phillip is arguably some of Australia's most important benchmarks for Pinot Noir and this new chapter of their story is going to be very exciting to watch unfold.

Biodynamic icon of South Gippsland Bass Phillip

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