2025 Joshua Cooper Dash Farms Chardonnay

94 pts
Joshua Cooper |Central Victoria |Chardonnay
Josh Cooper's best Dash Farms yet and a Noble Rot Top 9 Wines of Australia pick. Fuller, flinty, granite-driven Chardonnay.

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Description

Josh Cooper reckons 2025 is the best Dash Farms Chardonnay he's made yet, and the UK's Noble Rot clearly took notice, shortlisting it in their 'Rotters' Oz' Top 9 Wines of Australia. Not bad for a vineyard most people had never heard of a few years ago.

Josh grew up at Cobaw Ridge, his family's pioneering Macedon Ranges estate, and has built a cult following for small-batch, hands-off wines like his Ray-Monde Pinot. Dash Farms was planted in 1999 at over 450m on the granite southern slopes of Mt Alexander (Leanganook), just outside the Macedon Ranges GI. It ripens about a week ahead of Cobaw Ridge, and those lean soils give real concentration without the sugar.

The fruit was hand-picked, partly foot-crushed and gently pressed, then fermented and aged on lees for 12 months in new 300L Stockinger and Burgundian barrels. Another four months on fine lees in stainless steel followed before it went to bottle unfined and unfiltered. Only 550 dozen were made.

It's a bigger, more generous Dash Farms than we've seen before - crushed rock, lemon and grapefruit rind, just-ripe nectarine and a flinty, savoury edge, with a creamy finish and a fine line of acid keeping it all lively. Great with roast chicken or a piece of grilled fish, and it'll reward a few years in the cellar too.

Fuller and more powerful, yet still unmistakably fresh and granite-driven. A standout from one of Victoria's most exciting young winemakers.

94 points
"Absolute delight, in a fuller profile, yet with all the hallmark vitality expected. Right on."
- Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)

94 points - "Dashin’ through the snow, on a one horse open sleigh. A little puppy fat, a little creaminess, the tickle of brine and talc-like minerality. That’s the story so far. Bold perfume, lots of flavour, pleasing, balanced, yet generous. Lemon curd and baked apple, a touch of shortbread and thin, ginger biscuit. Absolute delight, in a fuller profile, yet with all the hallmark vitality expected. Right on." - Mike Bennie (The Wine Front)

Customer Reviews

Shortlisted: 'Rotters' Oz' Top 9 Wines of Australia (Noble Rot, UK)

Tasting Note
Pale with a green edge, Dash Farms offers restrained aromas of crushed rock, lemon and grapefruit rind, just ripe nectarine and spice. Flavours carry through to a dense and powerful palate with powdery phenolics, flinty, savoury complexity and a fine acid line, finishing creamy and long. The best vintage of this cuvée yet.

Vineyard
Planted in 1999, Dash Farms sits perched at over 450m ASL on the Southern granitic slopes of Mt. Alexander (Leanganook) looking back towards Mt Macedon and the Macedon Ranges. Like Ray-Monde, it sits just outside the Macedon Ranges GI. Ripening for Chardonnay occurs around a week earlier than my family's vineyard Cobaw Ridge. These lean granite soils and high altitude confer both concentration and freshness at low sugar levels.

Winemaking
Once hand-harvested with careful sorting in the vineyard, the bunches were partially crushed by foot and very gently pressed. Overnight settling then occurs before transfer to a combination of new Stockinger 300L oak and Burgundian piece for fermentation and lees ageing for 12 months. This is then followed by four months in stainless steel on fine lees, before racking and bottling, unfined and unfiltered.

Technical Details
Alcohol: 13.5%
Oak: New Stockinger 300L oak and Burgundian piece, 12 months on lees
Production: 550 dozen

Price Bracket $51 to $100
Type White
Body Full Bodied
Variety Chardonnay
Country Australia
Region Central Victoria
Australian State VIC
Reviewed By The Wine Front
Critic Score 94
Alcohol 12.5%
Size 750ml
Vintage 2025
Closure DIAM Cork

Joshua Cooper

Joshua Cooper is the son of Nelly and Allan Cooper, the founders of the acclaimed Cobaw Ridge winery in the Macedon Ranges.

Born and raised on the top-tier cool climate wines of his family, Josh's wines have a delicacy and unforced feel to them. As you might imagine, growing up in the Macedon Ranges, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are two varieties he particularly excels with, as too is his great love, which is Cabernet. He sources his fruit from a series of growers across central Victoria who farm with a like-minded philosophy of organic farming and sustainability, with plans to plant his own vineyard in Macedon in the future.

Josh makes only a small amount of each wine and they are in high demand from those who want to get in early on the next generation of Cooper. He is undoubtedly one of the country's most exciting and acclaimed young winemakers, being named James Halliday's Best New Winery for 2024 as well as the winner of Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine’s Young Winemaker of the Year 2020.

Winemaker Josh Cooper - Macedon Ranges, VIC Joshua Cooper

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