2021 Medhurst Reserve Chardonnay | Rare Yarra Valley Chardonnay

🍷 JUST 50 DOZEN PRODUCED | INCREDIBLY RARE MEDHURST RESERVE CHARDONNAY

The Pinnacle of Medhurst Chardonnay. This is where Medhurst gets seriously exciting.

Beautifully layered, sophisticated Chardonnay. The attraction here is the combination of concentration and precision.

96 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

Yarra Valley, Victoria

RRP $112.50 a bottle

The 2021 Medhurst Reserve Chardonnay sits at the very top of the Medhurst Chardonnay hierarchy—a limited-release wine produced to showcase the very best the estate can achieve.

Medhurst describes its Reserve wines as representing its highest-quality, true small-batch winemaking, with the Reserve tier sitting above the Estate range.

And 2021 wasn't just another vintage.

Medhurst describes it as an “excellent/benchmark vintage”, with beautifully balanced fruit weight, complexity, line and length.

Add 96 points from Halliday Wine Companion, and this becomes a very serious bottle of Yarra Valley Chardonnay.

Tasting Notes

Expect a beautifully layered, sophisticated Chardonnay showing:

• White peach and nectarine
• Lemon curd
• Grapefruit and citrus zest
• Green apple
• White flowers
• Toasted hazelnut
• Cashew
• Subtle struck-match complexity
• Fine French oak
• Creamy lees texture
• Mineral freshness

The attraction here is the combination of concentration and precision.

There's beautiful stone fruit through the centre of the palate, but citrus acidity provides energy and drive. Fine oak and lees-derived texture add another layer without overwhelming the fruit.

With several years of bottle age now behind it, expect the youthful citrus and stone fruit to begin developing more complex nutty, savoury and creamy characters.

This is Chardonnay with substance.

96 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

96 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

That's exactly the sort of score you'd expect from a flagship Chardonnay.

But what makes this release particularly compelling is the combination of Reserve-level selection and the quality of the 2021 vintage.

Medhurst's own vintage report describes 2021 as producing fruit with intense flavours and beautiful natural acidity, resulting in wines with excellent balance, complexity, line and length.

Those are precisely the ingredients required for great Chardonnay.

Reserve Means the Best of Medhurst

This isn't simply an Estate Chardonnay with a different label.

The Reserve range represents the pinnacle of Medhurst's production.

The winery describes these wines as:

Limited releases. True small-batch winemaking.

Medhurst's Reserve tasting also specifically showcases its Reserve wines alongside their Estate counterparts, with the winery describing the Reserve tier as representing the highest quality and true small-batch winemaking.

That makes the 2021 Reserve Chardonnay particularly interesting for anyone who already knows the excellent Medhurst Estate Chardonnay.

This is the next level.

The Benchmark 2021 Yarra Valley Vintage

The story of the 2021 vintage adds another reason to buy this wine.

Medhurst describes the growing season as a “true roller coaster with a great result in the end.”

After a wet beginning and later-than-average budburst, conditions improved significantly. Mild, dry and warm weather allowed excellent flowering and fruit set, followed by a mild December.

After rain in January, February turned warm but not excessively hot, with only 4mm of rainfall, allowing the fruit to ripen evenly before picking began in the third week of February.

The resulting fruit showed intense flavour and beautiful natural acidity.

Medhurst's conclusion?

An excellent, benchmark vintage.

For a Chardonnay designed to age, that's exactly what you want.

An Aged Release – Ready to Drink Now

Here's another big selling point.

This isn't the latest vintage being released immediately after bottling.

It's a 2021 Reserve Chardonnay with around five years of development from vintage already behind it.

That's significant.

Great Chardonnay changes dramatically with bottle age. Primary citrus and stone-fruit characters begin moving towards hazelnut, toast, nougat, beeswax and savoury complexity, while the acidity and mineral structure remain underneath.

So instead of buying a premium Chardonnay and waiting years for it to develop, much of that work has already been done for you.

This is entering a fantastic drinking window now.

Food Pairings

Give this something worthy of it:

• Lobster
• Seared scallops
• Butter-poached marron
• Kingfish
• Grilled snapper
• Roast chicken
• Crab linguine
• Mushroom and truffle risotto
• Pork belly
• Comté or Gruyère

Don't serve it refrigerator-cold.

Around 10–12°C in a large Chardonnay or Burgundy glass will allow the texture and complexity to really open up.

Cellaring

The combination of 2021's excellent natural acidity, Reserve-level fruit and the structure of serious Yarra Valley Chardonnay means there's no need to rush.

Drink now–2032+.

Right now you should get a fascinating combination of youthful fruit and emerging bottle-aged complexity.

Over the next few years, expect more toast, nuts, honey and savoury characters to emerge.

Why We Love It

This is a very different proposition from buying a young $100+ Chardonnay.

You're getting a limited-production Reserve wine, from what Medhurst itself calls an excellent/benchmark vintage, with several years of bottle development already behind it.

Then there's the score:

96 Points – Halliday Wine Companion

And the Reserve positioning matters. Medhurst specifically identifies this tier as representing the best it produces, with a focus on limited releases and small-batch winemaking.

At RRP $112.50, the 2021 Medhurst Reserve Chardonnay belongs firmly in the premium Yarra Valley Chardonnay conversation.

But the real attraction is that you don't have to wait.

Five years from vintage, this is exactly the sort of Chardonnay I'd be excited to open now—still fresh and energetic, but beginning to show the nutty, creamy, savoury complexity that only comes with time.

If you love serious Chardonnay from Yarra Yering, By Farr, Giaconda, Bindi or Mount Mary, this is a Medhurst wine worth discovering.