Giant Steps Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2024

Name: Giant Steps Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2024
Brand: Giant Steps
SKU: RAWGSYCHA22-ER-RT
Price: 38.33 AUD
Availability: InStock

$38.33

$36.42 - Save 5% with 6 bottle case

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1 Bottle ($38.33) 6 Bottle Case Save 5%

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About this Wine

The 2024 vintage is a more classic Yarra season. A cool start to spring and ideal flowering conditions lead to good fruit set and moderate yields. December was cool and mild, with significant rainfall at New Years and during the first week of January giving the vines a good drink leading into the heat of February. Mid to late February was drier and warmer than is common in the Yarra, leading to great ripening conditions with no disease pressure and a quite fast vintage. In 2024, all of our Pinot and Chardonnay was ready in quick succession, leading to a compressed harvest - with the whole valley picked in the space of 3 weeks (where it normally spreads across 6 weeks). An exciting ride for our team but ultimately giving us wines with great flavour, bright acidity and balance.

Vineyard Notes
Sourced from vineyards across the Yarra Valley. 50% sourced from the upper Yarra ranges.

Winemaking
At Giant Steps, we hand pick 100% of our fruit and fastidiously hand sorted in the vineyard . The grapes are then transported to the winery and put into the cold room over night to cool down to 4 deg C before pressing the day following. Chardonnay is always whole bunch pressed either directly to barrel or pressed to tank before immediate transfer to barrel with full solids. The wine is wild fermented in French oak puncheons, 15% of which is new while the balance is seasoned. We allow the ferments to get warm, and stir ferments daily to encourage fermentation and build texture. The level of malolactic fermentation (MLF) is dependant on season. In 2024 10% of the barrels went through MLF. Post fermentation, we sulphur and then hold the barrels in a reductive environment on full lees with no stirring until blending and bottling in November.

Type	White Wine
Varietal(s)	Chardonnay
Country	Australia
Region	Yarra Valley
Brand	Giant Steps
Vintage	2024

Yarra Valley Wine

The Yarra Valley wine region is the most important area of wine production in Victoria today, and with its proximity to Melbourne, also the most visited in the state.

Yarra Valley is split into the Upper Yarra and the valley floor. The Upper Yarra is cooler in climate due to its elevation and coupled with younger, fertile, red soils produces most of the region’s notable varietals: Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. The valley floor is warmer and has predominantly grey soils with pockets of granite and limestone.

Pinot noir has long been considered a notoriously difficult variety to grow. However, the cool climate and longer growing seasons of the Yarra Valley allow the fruit to develop full flavoured and ripe character.

Chardonnay in the past has long been associated with a deep oily, buttery style that experiences full malolactic fermentation and great amounts of oak. This style has since fallen out of favour and wine makers in the Yarra Valley have capitalized on this trend to produce leaner, acid driven Chardonnays that are closer in style to those from Burgundy.

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Critic reviews

James Halliday – "Smells fleshy with aromas of stone fruits, together with a little pink grapefruit and light citrus notes. It's both approachable and gentle, even as a young wine, but the balance for drinking now or cellaring in the short to medium term is absolutely spot on."