The Second Coming of Australian Chardonnay

BY ANGUS HUGHSON | JUNE 10, 2025

The wheels of the international wine industry turn slowly, limited by vineyard growth, static consumer sentiment and winemakers who tinker on a vintage-by-vintage basis. But occasionally, there are moments in time when a genuine pivot occurs, such as when a strong vintage or producer brings a wine region or style to light, or out of the cold. Arguably, the 1982 vintage and particularly Robert Parker’s reviews reenergised the market for Bordeaux after the largely lacklustre 1970s, while the 1968 Sassicaia helped to redefine Italy’s place in the wine world and radically change the country’s trajectory. Australia is on the cusp of such a pivot with Chardonnay.

Historically, Australia’s vinous fortunes have been inextricably tied to Shiraz. Like Riesling for Germany and Sauvignon Blanc for New Zealand, the success of a country’s wine industry is, unfortunately, often judged by the story of a single leading grape variety, obscuring what is happening behind the scenes. Shiraz has long made sense as the country’s leading light, thanks to a climate well suited to the variety and a significant stock of old vines and world-class wines.

However, Chardonnay has been humming away in the background, slowly but surely rising in quality and stature. The awarding of Giaconda’s 2021 Chardonnay as #2 in the Vinous Top 100 wines of 2024 was a harbinger of the changing global outlook. Over the last 20 years, a number of factors have driven this steady increase in quality: intuitive winemaking with an increasingly hands-off approach, greater exploration of cooler-climate terroirs, advancing vine age, and a better understanding of various clones. Together, these have sharpened the national proposition and the likelihood that Chardonnay will increasingly define the Australian wine landscape over the next decade and beyond.

This shift is already evident in the country’s vineyards and wineries, with more Chardonnay crushed during the 2024 vintage than any other variety. But Chardonnay’s rise has been far from meteoric. It has been a bloody battle, a slow burn of trial and error, and a long, winding road from the country’s first forays into large-scale Chardonnays to the exciting level of quality and detail seen in today’s finest expressions of the variety. Chardonnay is an incredibly malleable variety with the ability to yield quality wines in an array of both temperate and cooler climates, which conveniently matches conditions across Southern Australia. Chardonnay drinkers seeking tight, lean, acid-driven styles can look to Tasmania, while more flavoursome styles can be found in Beechworth and the Hunter Valley. The dynamic interplay between clone, site, climate and winemaking makes Australian Chardonnay a chameleon with almost endless stylistic variation and potential to produce wines to suit all tastes.

The cool, elevated Ashton Hills vineyards of Adelaide Hills.

A Brief History

Thirty years ago, the first wine I ever purchased by the case was an Australian Chardonnay. For a nascent palate on a student budget, the combination of exotic mango, peach and nectarine aromas jumping out of the glass with the relative complexity of (cheap) sweet, toasty oak and buttery malolactic influences was a revelation. It was the perfect staple for a hot Sydney Summer. At $10 a bottle, you could not go wrong. These short-lived, sunshine-in-the-glass wines led the initial charge for Australian wine on the international market. These were wines of their time, showcasing vibrant sweet fruit flavours that seduced wine consumers and the trade alike. In some ways, these wines also reflected a relatively young wine nation—one made up of consumers just beginning their journey with wine and winemakers eager to make a big splash on the international stage with their new tools.

Chardonnay was actually one of the first grape varieties imported to Australia, but until the 1980s, it remained an outlier, mostly used for sparkling wines before the emergence of the full-throttle style of still wines. The success of these wines encouraged significant plantings, particularly in warmer regions, igniting a goldrush for Chardonnay. Bigger was, without doubt, better. The Hunter Valley got in on the action, as did McLaren Vale, with wines that pushed flavour and texture to extremes. These historic wines were not subtle, but they certainly attracted plenty of fans locally and internationally.

At the time, you could hardly enter a local restaurant without seeing bottles of Chardonnay from the likes of Rosemount Estate, Mountadam, Leeuwin Estate or Petaluma on almost every table. These wines were unashamedly hedonistic with rivers of flavour, a homegrown style rather than something inspired by wines from around the world, although there was some international input—Robert Mondavi played a role in the early years at Leeuwin Estate. These Chardonnays remained popular for some time, but consumers slowly tired of the simple, sunny flavours and overt oak. The adolescent phase of Australian Chardonnay soon ended as local consumers shifted towards fresher, acid-driven styles, paving the way for the rise of Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, which eventually overshadowed Chardonnay in the domestic market. The tide had already begun to turn towards more nuanced Chardonnays, but it would take decades of rethinking winemaking and grapegrowing to fully harness Chardonnay’s significant national potential.

One of the core drivers of this stylistic transformation was a love affair—some would call it an obsession—with white Burgundy, driven by some key critics and members of the wine trade. The initial criticism of the early two-dimensional Australian style cut deep and sent many key vignerons on a search for a local approximation to Burgundy. This was not without the odd misstep along the way, including an overcorrection by some winemakers into early-picked, thin wines bereft of flavour. Some winemakers are still overly cautious with regard to ripeness. Today, gone are the heavy-set, lusciously flavoured, overtly oaky Chardonnays of the past, as are their frigid, lean antitheses. Thankfully, their replacement is a sleeker Chardonnay expression. The best examples combine power, genuine ripeness, acidity and depth of fruit. Those unfamiliar with the category may be surprised by the elegance and restraint in these wines, challenging the general perception of Australian wine. As always, at the heart of the greatest wines in this category are well-chosen vineyards with a genuine sense of place.