Chardonnay: the talk of the show

The Orange region excels with chardonnay and there is often a buzz when the chardonnay classes are judged at the local Wine Show. But there was a little extra sizzle in 2024.

A few weeks before the show a chardonnay from Orange had won the trophy at the James Halliday Chardonnay Challenge, a national competition attracting entries from Australia’s best regions for the variety. This was a stunning success for Orange chardonnay. Chair of Judges, Adam Wadewitz, said the winning wine had “distinct character and managed the trifecta of flavour, acidity and complexity all packed into an energetic, charming framework.”

The same wine was entered into the 2024 Orange Wine Show. Would it floor the opposition again?

Nope. A bronze medal.

How can that happen? How can a wine stand tall at a national wine show and then score modestly at a regional show a month later? Did the judges get it wrong?

It’s interesting. The judges’ comments about the winning wine nailing the “trifecta of flavour, acidity and complexity” reflect measures of quality. But surely all the top wines were of excellent quality? The characteristic that seemed to get the wine from Orange over the finish line was the “distinct character” it exhibited.

Perhaps we can call this terroir. It’s how the chardonnay grape expresses itself in Orange’s cool, continental (away from the sea) climate. The region’s chardonnays tend to exhibit delicacy, yet intensity, great purity and wonderful varietal expression.

The difficulty that the Halliday winner faced at the Orange Wine Show was that all the entries in the chardonnay classes displayed the terroir of the region! So what was standing out as distinctly different in a national competition was ubiquitous in the local show.

It’s not unusual for an excellent wine to get ‘missed’ in a wine show. There were 60 chardonnays entered in two classes at the 2024 Orange Wine Show. The average standard was high as no local producer in their right mind would enter an ordinary chardonnay. In this context a more delicate chardonnay may not stand out, especially if tasted alongside some bigger, oakier styles.

I tried the Halliday winner and thought it was gorgeous but apparently it just slipped through the net. Wine judging isn’t a hard science.

At the consumer tasting I was manning one of the chardonnay tables and when asked ‘what’s good?’ I would answer ‘Actually, they are all good. What style do you like?’