Praeter Truscott Block Chardonnay 2025

Praeter Truscott Block Chardonnay 2025

The Truscott Block is situated at 550m above sea level in the Piccadilly sub-region of the Adelaide Hills.  The block is located on an undulating slope that is generally E-NE in aspect and consists of silty loam over deep clays, with sandstone and quartz peppered throughout.

The block features a mix of Chardonnay clones with an average age of 30+ years. The high altitude means the block was harvested four weeks later than the Magpie Block, and the fruit exhibits the classic weight, acid and power of the Piccadilly Valley.

The fruit was whole-bunch pressed and racked to French oak hogsheads (25% new) with full solids.  The wines underwent malolactic fermentation and remained on lees for 10 months before blending and bottling.

There's a certain weight and depth here on the nose, immediately apparent that there's more power behind the fruit, those clay soils doing their work and providing an intensity and vertical depth. It's intensely quartzite like, chiseled and initially reticent but with air shows clotted cream, white stone fruit, white cherry and green melon. There's more generous fruit here through the mid, and more power with a lovely zesty nature to the finish. It's classy, and for all the built up coiled intensity, the package finishes in such an understated fashion - very serious wine with lots of potential on it's side to blossom into something giant killer!

"Emphatically good chardonnay. Cedar-smoke, brine. flint and fennel characters are built around a confident core of peach, nectarine. cooked apple and lemon curd flavours. It’s juicy, fleshy and generous but neat and zippy at the same time. It has excellent persistence. There’s a smoked hay/bran character roundabouts. It’s complex, delicious, long-flavoured and more." 94 Points - Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front