95 POINTS
Cassandra Charlick - Decanter
Like stepping into a garden. A cloud of jasmine, honeysuckle, fennel blossom, sweet pea and apricot blossom, with custard apple, custard powder and lots of oriental spice and florals. The palate speaks of toasty oak, firm phenolics and structure, with a juicy layer of fleshy stone fruit and lemon pip, vanilla bean, custard pie and marzipan, though cutting acidity keeps it fresh against rather a lot of fruit sweetness. Lacy, crunchy acidity lifts the fresh factor, while texture and oak provide a creamy mouthfeel. A fabulous wine to drink now. From Gingin clone vines. Some skin contact, fermented in French barriques, 35% new, followed by 10 months in barrel.
94 POINTS
Tom Kline - Winepilot
Producer. Producer. Producer. Despite the 2024 naysaying (at least for Chardonnay) on account of its warmth, this is unsurprisingly all class and one to jump on for the quality-to-price ratio. Nougat, chestnut and fine cedar mark a savoury beginning before an unfurling of white grapefruit, peach skin and dehydrated lime. Allusions of flint. It’s immediate and open, though with definition and detail. Notes of brown spice and salted lemon emerge with air. It all clicks nicely into place, making for a really striking perfume. The palate is textural and full, with the nutty savouriness and fine cedar notes sitting forward before a cut of pithy white grapefruit and tangy lemon hold sway and pull it linear. Classic Gin Gin clone acidity and phenolic grip put up a lovely long frame around the finish, which is drawn to good length. This is very good, and at its price point it can boast complexity, structure, power and detail.
94 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2024 Prelude Vineyards Chardonnay is excellent. The warm conditions of 2024 have produced a tranche of wines that show great drinkability early. This is concentrated, saline, punchy, spicy and a little flinty. It's really good. It's coming to the end of its release cycle now and will soon be replaced by the 2025 vintage in mid-2026. Winter 2023 was generally mild. While there were a few wild, wet, and grey pruning days, they were fewer than usual. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir burst early, reaching 100% budburst by August 18. Riesling followed soon after, with the red varieties breaking bud in mid- to late September as the weather improved. The 2024 season was dry, with the last significant rain falling in mid-September—only 25.2 millimeters fell from then until the end of the vintage. Warm conditions meant the season started earlier than average and finished early as well. A couple of hot days, combined with consistently beautiful weather through November and December, set the stage for a January 15 start to Pinot Noir harvesting for sparkling wine. Chardonnay handpicking began in quick succession from January 30 and continued for several weeks, with fine, sunny, mild mornings. Riesling harvest also began at this time, picked at night to ensure the cool arrival of pristine lemon-lime fruit at the winery. January and February 2024 brought a spectacular flowering of the local red gum, marri. Calm harvest mornings were filled with the delicate, sweet, honey-like scent of the blossom-laden trees. The bloom kept birds entirely distracted during the white harvest, preventing damage to the fruit. The marri blossom isn't spoken about perhaps as much as it should be, for the impact it has on birds, which are beautiful but a key viticultural challenge in years with low marri blossoming.
93 POINTS
Ken Gargett - Winepilot
Given that the Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay is always considered one of our very best Chardonnays, each vintage, it should be no surprise that their Prelude Chardonnay is another seriously good wine. Inevitably, it will be looked at as a second wine by some, but it deserves better than that. In fact, there would be wineries lining up to have this as their pinnacle release. Fermentation was in French barriques with 35% of them new. The wine then spent a further ten months in maturation. Lemon/straw in colour, there are gorgeous aromas here, with cashews, white peaches, stone fruits, nectarines, woodsmoke, citrus and mandarins all prevalent. The wine has enjoyed excellent oak handling, is of medium to good length and offers a fine line of acidity. Fresh and bright, this has at least six to eight years of providing pleasure ahead of it.
93 POINTS
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
I appreciate the talk around the 2024 Margaret River vintage but I’m still seeing lots of good wines produced. This is as good as you’d hope and better than you’d expect. It’s a very good wine. It has good fruit intensity, a rub of texture, sound-smoky length and strong all-around appeal. It tastes of grapefruit, lemongrass, peach and pear, with cedar and smoke as attractive whispers. All the way along the line, I like what I taste here.
92 POINTS
Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate
The 2024 Prelude Vineyards Chardonnay is super light in the glass and aromatically restrained. The palate is nutty and complex, as always, with brilliant length and poise through the mid palate and finish. This feels lighter and less concentrated than years previous, and yet it does not lack length through the finish. 2024 was both hot and dry, and yet the wine shows none of the challenges in the glass. It's very good. 14% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.
92 POINTS
Angus Hughson - Vinous
The 2024 Chardonnay Prelude Vineyards is generously fruited, offering layered aromas of nectarine, peach and persimmon, with vanillin oak well matched. The palate is packed with tropical flavors and aided by a gentle bite of acidity, which delivers impressive length. This wine is ready to enjoy now but will also build nicely over the medium term.
90 POINTS
Angus Hughson - Vinous
The 2024 Chardonnay Prelude Vineyards is exotic, offering layers of bright fruit salad aromas with accents of fresh pear and florals underpinned by spicy oak. The palate is open knit and creamy textured in a full-flavored package accented with nutty, well-integrated oak before softening on the finish.
