Back in December 2005, I wrote a piece lamenting the style and direction of Australian chardonnay. In part I wrote...

In making chardonnay, most, but not all Australian winemakers have made a deal with the devil. In order to hurry up the evolution of the wine and increase their sales, they indulge in malolactic fermentation. This legal skullduggery softens the acid in the wine, making it approachable at an earlier age but at a cost to the wine; its soul has been sold. Most Aussie chardonnays reach their peak between one and five years after vintage; it is rare to see a good one after ten years, they mostly just fall apart. Excessive malolactic fermentation also confers a sameness to our chardonnays, all butterscotch and nutty characters, which leads to the subtler characters of the wine being lost.

Australian riesling producers have probably been quite happy about the situation as their revival continues apace, but it seems the ABC brigade (Anything But Chardonnay) have at long last started to have an effect and the chardonnay style in this country has started to be realigned towards a leaner more mineral style with much less malo, allowing chardonnay to show off its more subtle characteristics that were formerly drowned out by butterscotch and nutty flavours. Ironically, the French have looked at their own and started to make theirs a little riper and less austere.

Site selection has been crucial to this with cooler vineyards now in vogue along with better clonal selection and less reliance on oak and malolactic fermentation. These new, sleeker wines leave you wanting more than one glass of wine, which was something the fatter, richer style never did. If you, like me, tired of Australian chardonnay, perhaps it's time to have another look and get a glimpse of the future direction of this variety, which after all, does make some of the greatest wines in the world.

Names to look for include Shaw & Smith from the Adelaide Hills, Bindi from the Macedon Ranges, Oakridge from the Yarra Valley (yes, Oakridge) and Mountadam from Eden Valley, who have also suffered some recent hiccups. If you get the chance, Bindi's sparkling wines are also superb, with a recent bottle, one of the finest Australian sparkling wines I've ever tried.