There’s an inevitability about great old wines that there’s no point in fighting against. People open them, they get forgotten, they exceed their use-by date, bottles break and corks fail. They become scarcer and scarcer, ultimately finishing their days as writings and memories. So when the opportunity arises to taste every vintage of a wine as special as Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay, whose old vintages are almost entering that final stage of scarcity, you accept it with both hands. There’s not much to say about Leeuwin Estate’s Chardonnay that hasn’t been said before. Since its first vintage in 1980 it has consistently been amongst the very best of Australian chardonnays of any given year, occasionally the best. It’s by some margin the most consistent and best performed Australian chardonnay of all time and has a track record that will take some beating. It’s also worth considering that its production far surpasses most other top-rated Australian chardonnays, such as those of Bannockburn, Pierro and Giaconda. Leeuwin steadfastly refuses to separate from the main blend barrels made from its key chardonnay vineyard, Block 20, to create a ‘Leeuwin Reserve’. To the credit of all involved, the Art Series wine is a true reserve wine, irrespective of how much is made, several times the run of wines like Petaluma Tiers, Bannockburn SRH or even Penfolds Yattarna. The duo responsible since its earliest days for its creation, winemaker Bob Cartwright and viticulturist John Brocksopp, are less concerned with infusing smart innovative ideas into their wine than gradually refining what they’ve been doing. They’ve done some major experiments over the last two decades, but are pretty well doing what they’ve always done, confident that it’s the right thing. Improvement will be natural now, as the vines continue to develop in maturity and as minor modifications to winemaking technique contribute the 1% factors so important to wines of this standing. One of the key messages delivered by this tasting was that some Australian chardonnays can not only cellar well, but there are some – this included – which simply demand cellaring. While very few premium Australian chardonnays are actually given the five to eight years they need to reach their peak, I think that in most vintages it is essential to leave Leeuwin Estate’s Art Series Chardonnay for between eight to twelve years. They certainly don’t lose freshness in this time and generally appreciate the opportunity to fully come together. The other significant point about these wines that while they share many of the qualities inherent in great white Burgundies, they generally do not closely resemble them. What makes this a point worth making is that so many Australian wine drinkers have formed the view that just because a wine is made with techniques unashamedly borrowed from the French, that our better makers of chardonnay are trying to copy their wines. Nothing could be further from the truth. Finally, it would normally take a wine company to stage such a remarkable tasting, but in this case it was one of Melbourne’s most enthusiastic and generous collectors, Andrew Stuart. To you, Andrew, my thanks.
