Powerful and opulent with a flinty backbone to balance the concentrated stone fruit and barrel fermentation complexities.

Picardy Chardonnay from Western Australia's emerging region of Pemberton is a beautifully crafted wine; melon, stone fruit and grapefruit in a Burgundian style with the influence of quality oak.

The wines of Fraser Gallop Estate are intensely flavoured, textured and complex. Only the finest quality French oak barrels are used for all Fraser Gallop Estate wines, with very specific Bordelais coopers used for the Cabernet Sauvignon and Semillon Sauvignon Blanc blends, and Burgundian coopers for the Chardonnay. The complete winemaking process takes place at the estate - picking to vinification to barrel maturation to bottling to cellaring. Fraser Gallop Estate is an estate grown, produced and bottled wine. Flavours of lemon curd and grapefruit with searing length. A wine with clarity and finesse. A tightly focussed and very precise wine showing seamless fruit purity with the lightly toasted French oak very much in the background. Crystalline acidity and a mouth-watering finish complete this Chardonnay.

This has power and concentration yet retains delicacy and freshness. Mineral, grapefruit, almond meal and quality oak are seamlessly interwoven.

Sandro Mosele continues to take Kooyong's estate wines to heights unseen for the price. Focus, linear acidity and supreme elegance are all hallmarks of Sandro's work and all can be seen here. Along with great precision, comes lovely fruit characters also that work with a whole range of Asian-fusion cuisine.

One of the best value Margaret River Chardonnays out there. Michael Kerrigan is doing an amazing job producing Chardonnays of elegance. Hay Shed Hill has delicate grapefruit and stone fruit flavours on the palate. And these flavours are matched with fine, minerally acidity with suble oak towards the finish.

Louis Latour's Saint-Véran is a wonderful example of the fresh Maconnais style displaying a light yellow colour and a bouquet of musk and toasty brioche aromas. On the palate, this bargain French Chardonnay is rich and powerful yet still with a lively, fresh finish. Going through complete malolactic fermentation in stainless steel vats, this southern Burgundian white is the perfect balance for brightness and complexity.

Alex Retief is making some really exciting wines from different regions in NSW. The Chardonnay, from Tumbarumba in the pristine Snowy Mountains of NSW, was fermented and matured on leeas for 18 months in new French barriques, but the palate is still tight and austere. A delicate and subtle wine, full of white peach, flint and mineral saltiness.