Precocious Australian Chardonnays – drink up!

At a tasting of Australian white wines for British Airways last week I was really quite shocked at how old some of the 2002 Chardonnays are looking already. We were choosing wines in quantities sufficient for Business Class so the range did not include any of the very top names discussed already this year on these pages but nor was it concerned with the bottom end of the market. These are supposed to be serious, superior wines.

It was notable how much higher the strike rate was in grapes other than Chardonnay. David Traeger Verdelho 2003, Cape Mentelle's new Georgiana...