Giant Steps Applejack Vineyard Chardonnay 2023

Product Information: The 2023 Applejack Chardonnay arrives. Savoury, with lovely notes of lemon rind and grilled nuts. Overall, a sense of wound up stone fruits, lemon verbena and crushed rocks. It’s nervy, saline and no doubt a long future ahead of it. Drink or keep! Chardonnay from Applejack needs lots of attention to detail in the vineyard, a big emphasis on crop loads and fruit exposure to ensure even ripeness and acid levels. For winemaking, it starts completely handpicked and gently whole bunch pressed. The juice was then transferred directly to barrel by gravity with no settling, taking full lees for texture and detail. Wild fermentation takes place in 500L French oak puncheons. No lees stirring and no Malolactic fermentation for a more crystalline style. Maturation goes 9 months in used French oak – 25% 2nd use, 75% seasoned, Mercurey, Taransaud and Dargaud & Jaeglé. From GM and Head Winemaker at Giant Steps, Melanie Chest, “We have intentionally delayed the release to give the wines the time they deserved to express the purity of the vintage,” Chester notes. “I am so happy we made that choice—the wines are singing as we head into their release in August. Thanks for your patience, as I know many of you look forward each year to the new bottles from your favourite vineyards. We are especially excited that this release features our first expressions from Bastard Hill and highlights the stunning 2023 vintage. We hope you love the wines are much as we do.” The Giant Steps team are totally rapt after being named Winery of the Year and the 2023 Applejack Pinot Noir Best Pinot Noir at the 2025 Halliday Companion Awards. “It’s really wonderful to see the dedication and hard work of our entire Giant Steps team acknowledged in such a profound way,” says Melanie Chester. Giant Steps have an unwavering commitment to create pure and finessed wines that tell the stories of their vertiginous sites. Giant Steps vineyards have some of, if not the most exciting vineyards in the country. Maker: Since 1997, Giant Steps has built a reputation based on expressive wines with purity and finesse out of Yarra Valley. These are wines that reflect individual vineyard sites, located across the Yarra Valley from Tarrawarra to Gladysdale. Giant Steps was founded by wine industry pioneer Phil Sexton, who journeyed from Margaret River to Yarra Valley looking for the ideal site to cultivate pure and finessed Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Eventually, Phil found his hallowed ground near Gruyere in the Sexton vineyard, which he planted in 1997 on the steep slopes of the Warramate Ranges. The name comes from John Coltrane’s album “Giant Steps”, which felt like a fitting choice given the steep slopes of the vineyard and Phil’s love of jazz. In 2003, Winemaker Steve Flamsteed came aboard, another muso, and the two set about producing a range of iconic Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays that express a profound sense of place from six finite sites in Yarra Valley. Melanie Chester, became Head of Winemaking and Viticulture at Giant Steps in 2021, her long-held admiration for the winery comes with an intrinsic pressure to honour the expressions and diversity of its single sites. Mel, says she is “committed to ensuring that the quality will be the same if not better.” This means keeping the winemaking tight and transparent, so that diversity of site is what you taste. Giant Steps has been advancing Australia’s reputation for cool-climate Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for the past 20 years, the addition of Mel’s craft and energy will ensure this legacy continues. The proof in the pudding. Giant Steps was awarded 2025 Halliday Winery of the Year and Pinot Noir of the Year. A huge achievement that’s been years in the making. Of course Mel takes none of the credit (the best seldom do), instead she props up everyone involved until now, founder Phil Sexton, winemaker Steve Flamsteed, grower Lou Primavera and respected viticulturist Ray Guerin. True, there’s much to celebrate at Giant Steps, and it’s impossible not to mention the new(-ish) Bastard Hill Vineyard release among them. Wine journalist, Campbell Mattinson paints a colourful gist of the site, “the Bastard Hill vineyard, named for obvious reasons, has been left to sleep out there on its steep mountain slopes as the bastard child of the companies formerly known as Hardy’s. As a result this should-be-great vineyard has been left out there