2024 Vignerons Schmolzer & Brown Brunnen Chardonnay

96 pts
VS&B's most popular wine over the years and one of our favourite Australian Chardonnays.

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Sale price$70.00
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Description

If you are going to make Beechworth Chardonnay, it is fair to say the bar has been set high. Names like Giaconda, Savaterre and Sorrenberg have set the standard for the region and they are some big shoes to fill. Tessa Brown and Jeremy Schmolzer are making a very good fist of it.

Their Brunnen Chardonnay comes from the vineyard directly across the road from their own block, way up in the high country behind Beechworth. It is a beautiful site - cool, high and isolated - and it was where they first made a name for themselves for producing Beechworth's most elegant wines.

The fruit is treated delicately; predominantly older oak, all natural ferments, malo only happens if it wants to. Nothing about this wine feels forced, it feels like it was nurtured into being. In a region where 'full noise' Chardonnay is the norm, this is all about subtlety and charm. It's a beautiful thing to drink.

VS&B's most popular wine over the years and one of our favourite Australian Chardonnays. Drink now or cellar with confidence.

96 points
"A striking chardonnay, pure and compelling in its youth, with a strong sense of terroir... A top Beechworth chardonnay completely in the zone."
- Jeni Port (Halliday Wine Companion)

96 points - "A striking chardonnay, pure and compelling in its youth, with a strong sense of terroir. Concentration-plus in aroma, delivering fresh citrus, stone fruits, melon, grapefruit pith, toasted almond, spice, lees-derived complexity and stylish oak. Beautifully elegant and refined, with a strong core of fresh acid cut and tension, holding rich stone fruits and citrus bright and fresh. A mix of biscuity, nutty complexity in league with a deep purity of fruit and gentle spice runs smoothly across the tongue, finishing on a long tail of zesty, pithy grapefruit. A top Beechworth chardonnay completely in the zone." - Jeni Port (Halliday Wine Companion)

One of the first wines we made, and now one of the best known. Our neighbours the Vissers have had this wee pocket of Chardonnay and Pinot noir on their own roots since 1994, and unirrigated since 2002. Managed and tended entirely by hand with much love. It's almost certainly old I clone intended for sparkling base, this mature and low cropping site now makes singular and recognisable Beechworth Chardonnay that sits amongst the best in the country, although it is produced at such small scale that it still flies very much under most folks' radars.

Price Bracket $51 to $100
Type White
Body Full Bodied
Variety Chardonnay
Country Australia
Region Beechworth
Australian State VIC
Feature Women in Wine
Reviewed By Halliday Wine Companion
Critic Score 96
Alcohol 13%
Size 750ml
Vintage 2024
Closure DIAM Cork

Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown

Tessa and Jeremy are playing a long-game with their Vignerons Schmolzer & Brown label.

They have invested in a block of land high in the hills behind Beechworth and have planted 10,000 vines on it over the last couple of years with the plan to farm it organically. Tessa has a wealth of experience from time at Sorrenberg and Kooyong, Jeremy is an architect by trade with an eye for detail.

It comes as no surprise that the buzz around this husband and wife team is palpable and the praise is high. Max Allen called them, “one of a remarkable number of impressive new wine labels to have cropped up in Beechworth over the last five years.”

They are going to be at the forefront of Beechworth wine for many years to come.

Tessa and Jeremy in Thorley vineyard - Beechworth, VIC Vignerons Schmölzer & Brown

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