Giant Steps Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2022
Style: White Wine
Closure: Screwcap
Giant Steps Yarra Valley Chardonnay 2022
Pick up
Burke Road
Camberwell VIC 3124
Australia
Producer: Giant Steps
Country: Australia
Region: Yarra Valley
Vintage: 2022
Critic Score: 95
Alcohol: 12.5%
Size: 750 ml
Drink by: 2030
The focus at Giant Steps is on the production of high-quality, single-vineyard wines. However, they also produce a gorgeous Chardonnay sourced from vineyards across the Yarra Valley (an even split of upper and lower Yarra fruit), with the majority coming from their Sexton, Tarraford, Applejack and Wombat Creek vineyards. The 2022 Giant Steps Yarra Valley Chardonnay was whole-bunched pressed and wild fermented in 15% new French puncheons.
"Grilled almonds and peaches with wet stones and runs of citrus. Beautiful (creamy) texture, flavour and composure. The elegance of this, the exotic wet stone notes, the smoky push on the finish. It’s all pretty much into wow territory. This is a gorgeous release, essence of chardonnay, scores schmores, buy and drink." Campbell Mattinson
Expert reviews
"An even split of upper and lower Yarra fruit. Whole-bunched pressed and wild fermented in 15% new French puncheons. Around 5% mlf. A light, bright green gold. Pure fruited with an attractive nose of just ripened orchard and stone fruits, pink grapefruit and orange blossom. A hint of matchstick and just-baked ginger snaps. Concentrated and lithe at the same time, Giant Step's calling card is just as good, if not better than the super 2021 release. Drink by 2027." Philip Rich, Halliday Wine Companion - 95 points and Special Value Wine ★
"Grilled almonds and peaches with wet stones and runs of citrus. Beautiful (creamy) texture, flavour and composure. The elegance of this, the exotic wet stone notes, the smoky push on the finish. It’s all pretty much into wow territory. This is a gorgeous release, essence of chardonnay, scores schmores, buy and drink. Drink: 2023 - 2030." Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front - 94 points
"I don’t think I have ever chosen a wine of the week that is so well distributed, which was a real surprise because when I tasted both the 2021 and 2022 before researching availability, I was struck by how non mass-market they seemed. Hats off to Phil Sexton’s operation, acquired by Jackson Family Wines in 2020, for managing to combine quality and quantity. Here’s a wine that would deliver something pretty close to the white burgundy experience for a fraction of the price of a white burgundy." Jancis Robinson - Wine of the Week
Awards
Special Value Wine – Halliday Wine Companion ★
Jancis Robinson - Wine of the Week
About the wine
The following article by Jancis Robinson appeared in jancisrobinson.com in June 2023
A fine alternative to white burgundy that shouldn't be too difficult to find.
I don’t think I have ever chosen a wine of the week that is so well distributed, which was a real surprise because when I tasted both the 2021 and 2022 before researching availability, I was struck by how non mass-market they seemed. Hats off to Phil Sexton’s operation, acquired by Jackson Family Wines in 2020, for managing to combine quality and quantity.
Here’s a wine that would deliver something pretty close to the white burgundy experience for a fraction of the price of a white burgundy. The Yarra Valley, outside Australia’s food-and-drink capital Melbourne, has long been proud of its Chardonnays (and Pinot Noirs). I was at a festival devoted to Yarra Valley Chardonnay back in 2019 and as a result wrote 'All change in the Yarra'.
These two vintages are, respectively, the last made by talented winemaker Steve Flamsteed and the first by his successor Melanie Chester, pictured above, who describes the winemaking involved as 'embarrassingly simple'. All the fruit, which comes from various vineyards all over the valley, at least half from the higher Yarra ranges, and many of them good enough to provide fruit for Giant Steps’ range of single-vineyard Chardonnay bottlings, is hand-picked.
It’s cooled overnight and then whole-bunch pressed, slowly and cool, the next day before being put into barrel that same day with full solids. Spontaneous fermentation in puncheons (15% new) follows, with a little SO2 added after about seven days, 'but our house style is not that reductive', according to Chester. Only about 10% of the wine is allowed to go through malolactic conversion and the wine is blended and bottled in October, seven months after the last grape was picked.
The weather in 2021 was cooler and wetter than usual, which encouraged slow ripening and yielded quite a generous crop. The yield in 2022 was much lower thanks to a difficult flowering in stormy weather. A dry December further reduced quantities and reduced average bunch weights by up to 40% of the usual. According to Chester’s notes, 'the mild summer meant long, slow ripening and flavour concentration throughout summer, with some well-placed rain in January refreshing the vineyards at just the right time. The strong canopies and low fruit load meant we sailed neatly into picking with very little disease or weather pressure affecting our picking decisions. The grapes from 2022 came off the vine with lovely concentration and flavour and great natural acidity.'
The wines are just 12.5% alcohol but are packed with delicate fruit, refreshing acidity and, like all Giant Steps wines, are characterised by extremely long finishes. The 2022 vintage is screwcapped as usual but the first to be bottled in a lightweight bottle – weighing just 1,286 g full (the 2021 weight is 1,334 g) and it looks quite smart. Nothing cheapskate about this.
Although the 2021 is obviously 12 months older than the 2022, I thought the wines were at very similar stages of evolution, both of them delicious to drink now but with another four or five years’ development ahead of them (a pretty good prospect for this price level). I tasted both within days of tasting Giant Steps’ single-vineyard Chardonnays and, while I think the latter will have a longer life than these less expensive blends, the regular Yarra Valley Chardonnays seem absolutely brilliant value to me.
Chester, incidentally, was last year made the first female and youngest chief judge of the Melbourne Royal Wine Awards, the show at which the influential Jimmy Watson Trophy is awarded, succeeding Matt Harrop of Curly Flat. Her mentor, she told me over a recent lunch in London, has been Tom Carson of Yabby Lake.
I should stress that both Sexton and Flamsteed are still very much around, in line with JFW’s policy of leaving the founders of the wineries they acquire in place whenever possible.
Go find these highly recommended wines.
About the winery
In 1997 Phil Sexton arrived in the Yarra Valley in search of ideal sites to produce Chardonnay and Pinot Noir of purity and finesse. He was looking for sites with altitude, aged soils, slopes of exposure, regular rainfall and cool to cold nighttime temperatures and a gentle breeze off the protecting mountain ranges. The Giant Steps winery was established one year later in 1998.
The focus is on the production of high-quality, single-vineyard wines. The Giant Steps Single Vineyard range is produced from the most site-expressive fruit off the best vineyards in great years. Each single vineyard wine tells a story about the vineyard, vintage and variety. Production of these wines is very limited with some vineyards producing as little as 200 cases.
The single vineyards comprise the Sexton Vineyard in the Lower Yarra and the Applejack Vineyard in the Upper Yarra (both owned by Giant Steps), the Tarraford Vineyard in the Lower Yarra under long-term lease, the Primavera Vineyard in the Upper Yarra under long-term supervised contract and the Wombat Creek Vineyard owned by Hand Picked Wines. In addition, Giant Steps produce a Yarra Valley range of wines made from handpicked fruit from their estate vineyards. They are highly expressive wines, true to the regional characteristics of the Yarra Valley.
The Giant Steps wines have received global acclaim and are now recognized as a global benchmark for cool climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Since 2003 Giant Steps wines have been awarded 34 trophies and over 100 gold medals at major international and domestic wine shows and has been named one of the Top 100 Wineries in the World by US Wine & Spirits Magazine for each of the last six years.
Giant Step's success is due in no small part to Steve Flamsteed, Chief Winemaker since 2003. Steve had previously worked for Leeuwin Estate (1999 – 2002) and the Hardy Wine Company at their Yarra Burn Winery in the Yarra Valley (2002 – 2003). Steve was named Gourmet Traveller Wine 'Winemaker of the Year' in 2016. "Steve Flamsteed is a man of many talents with a finely tuned palate, an instinctive flair for winemaking and fastidious attention to detail. This shows particularly in the stunning single-vineyard chardonnays and pinots of Giant Steps: distinctive wines that reflect their sites and glow with impeccable finesse." Peter Forrestal, chairman of judges, Gourmet Traveller Wine Winemaker of the Year
Melanie Chester joined Giant Steps as Head of Winemaking and Viticulture in 2021. She came to Giant Steps from Sutton Grange Winery in Central Victoria, where she was Head Winemaker. In 2014, Melanie became the youngest ever scholar selected for The Len Evans Tutorial. In 2015, she was named Young Winemaker of the Year by Gourmet Traveller Wine magazine, and in 2018, Melanie was recognized by Young Gun of Wine as the People's Choice award winner for favourite winemaker.
Giant Steps was acquired by the Jackson Family in 2020. The Jackson Family own a vast stable of wineries in California (Napa Valley, Sonoma County, Mendocino County, Monterey County, Santa Barbara and Oregon), Australia (Yarra Valley and McLaren Vale), Chile, France, Italy and South Africa.
Victoria
Victoria is home to more than 800 wineries across 21 wine regions. The regions are Alpine Valley, Beechworth, Bendigo, Geelong, Gippsland, Glenrowan, Goulburn Valley, Grampians, Heathcote, Henty, King Valley, Macedon Ranges, Mornington Peninsula, Murray Darling, Pyrenees, Rutherglen, Strathbogie Ranges, Sunbury, Swan Hill, Upper Goulburn and Yarra Valley.
Victoria's first vines were planted at Yering in the Yarra Valley in 1838. By 1868 over 3,000 acres had been planted in Victoria, establishing Victoria as the premier wine State of the day. Today, the original vineyards planted at Best's Wines are among the oldest and rarest pre-phylloxera plantings in the world.
Victoria's climate varies from hot and dry in the north to cool in the south and each wine region specialises in different varietals. For example, Rutherglen in the north is famous for its opulent Muscats and Topaque and bold reds, while the many cooler climate regions near Melbourne produce world class Chardonnay and pinot Noir. Victoria is truly a wine lover's playground.