MAKER FINDS HER DOMAINE IN YARRA VALLEY

Wc20Jun11

COOL: careful blending has made this
one a great match with seafoods.

David Ellis

LILIAN Carter wasted no time in making her presence known as Stills Winemaker when she joined Victoria's Domaine Chandon at the beginning of 2010 after a six-year stint working in South Australia.

Her 2010 Domaine Chandon Chardonnay that's just been released is a wonderfully sophisticated wine that she crafted by blending fruit from the higher reaches of the Yarra Valley, and which shows predominantly citrus flavours, with fruit from the Valley floor that's more stone-fruit dominated.

The cool-climate Yarra Valley is renowned for its Chardonnays, and this one has good vibrant flavours from the careful use of fruit from those differing vineyards, coupled with secondary roasted spice and toasty characters from an almost-underplayed use of French oak.

This is a wine you can certainly enjoy now with seafoods in particular – and Lilian suggests that a particularly nice match is with a creamy crayfish risotto – or put aside to age nicely in the cellar over the next five years. Pay $27.95.

CROP down, flavour up – whip a Scotch fillet
on the barbie with this one.

ONE FOR LUNCH: AFTER a 2008 heatwave "vintage from hell" in the Harcourt Valley just south of Bendigo, 2009 proved far more benevolent – although vines that were still recovering from the previous year produced crops twenty-five per cent down on the norm.

For BlackJack Vineyards' Ian McKenzie and Ken Pollock it was in fact something of a blessing with their reds in particular more concentrated in flavour and intensity than usual.

Search out their 2009 Chortle's Edge Shiraz, which is absolutely loaded with ripe plum and dark berry flavours and nice tannins. Pay $18 and whip a Scotch fillet on the barbie.

(NEED A FOOD/DRINK IDEA? Check out  http://www.vintnews.com )