2023 Stella Bella Chardonnay 12 Pack

95 POINTS

Jane Faulkner - Halliday Wine Companion

In a way, this is a bit of a sleeper. Slow to unfurl even if it immediately tastes delicious with its pink grapefruit, citrus rind and fresh ginger tang. Mouth-watering sulphides make an impression as the invigorating acidity surfaces, curling across the palate. Savoury, spicy, a little creamy yet flinty and fine, too. It’s tightly wound; let it breathe to reveal its detail or give it another year or so in the cellar. Either way, this is very good.

95 POINTS

Huon Hooke - The Real Review

Bright light-mid yellow with a strong smoky sulfide bouquet; struck flinty almost to the point of eletrical fire. These aired off with time in the glass revealing more grapefruit. The wine is intense, compact and bracing with lively acidity and fresh, crisp, cool-grown grapefruit flavours, the finish long and tensioned. A very impressive young chardonnay which is doing the full Coche-Dury act but has the intensity and acidity to make it work.

93 POINTS

Jeni Port - Winepilot

Whole bunch pressed and wild fermented with some stylish winemaking in play, this is a Chardonnay dressed in layers of complexity. Fruit is the overlying layer in peach skin, Meyer lemon, grapefruit, quince tart, nectarine. Winemaking and time in oak offers a distinctive cashew nuttiness and buttery overtones. Together, they combine for good depth of flavour and texture. The lovely quince brightness to the palate – with just a little dash of tartness – really strikes a chord. Elegant and fresh.

93 POINTS

James Suckling

Precise and minerally aromas of lemon peel, lime zest, apples and flint. The palate is tightly wound, with a medium-bodied mouthfeel and laser-like acidity, giving notes of grapefruit, mandarin rind and river stones. Very pure and refined, with high energy.

92 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2023 Chardonnay is salty and gently reductive initially, with chewy phenolics and salty sulfides that make this wine a mouthful—in a great way. There are notes of curry leaf and salted nuts. Lovely juicy acidity courses through the fruit, while the wine sits nicely on the middle palate. It is very good and comes from from an excellent white season in Margaret River: cool, mild and dry. This is brilliant value for money at $42 AUD. 12.9% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

92 POINTS

2024 - Decanter World Wine Awards

Toasty, flinty, smoky vanilla aromatics, palate of grapefruit curd, lemon pith and supply, glossy oak. Award: Silver - DWWA 2024

90 POINTS

Gary Walsh - The Wine Front

Maybe it’s just me, but the last three vintages of this wine seem quite different to how they used to taste. I can only comment on what’s in the glass, and how it meets me. Nectarine and grapefruit, a smoky struck match edge, light aniseed perfume, salted almond. It’s quite tangy, with a parmesan and green bean thing happening, which I can’t say I’m a huge fan of in Chardonnay, though aside that, the texture is flinty and chalky textured, and it finishes with solid length. The structure of it is a yes, though the flavours here kind of obfuscate the usual Margaret River Chardonnay, erm, yuminess, and turn it somewhat sour-edged. Anyway, I get that other people will dig this. One of those things.