Our Top 8 Australian Chardonnay Finds by Price…
Chardonnay is one of the most diverse and celebrated wine varieties, known for its wide range of styles, from crisp and lean to rich and full-bodied. But with so many choices, it can be overwhelming for consumers to know which Chardonnay is right for them. Price points often reflect key differences and is an indicator of quality, but it certainly doesn’t tell the full story.
The challenge for newcomers & wine lovers alike is that many of the diamonds in the rough as well as the top tier wines are limited in supply, making the best Chardonnays in their price bracket hard to find. Hopefully, our list highlights the standout Chardonnays at every price point—so you can confidently choose the one that suits your taste and budget.
Price points often reflect key differences in Chardonnay, but they don’t always tell the full story. In the more affordable range, typically under $30, you’ll often find bright, fresh expressions that are perfect for everyday enjoyment. These wines tend to emphasize vibrant acidity, with notes of citrus, green apple, and stone fruits, often with minimal oak influence.
Between $30 and $80, Chardonnays begin to reveal more complexity and nuance. You’ll encounter more refined oak integration, fuller body, and layered flavours that range from tropical fruit and creamy textures to hints of spice and minerality. These wines often showcase the winemaker’s skill and the terroir’s influence.
At the higher end, above $80, you’re stepping into the realm of truly premium Chardonnays. Here, meticulous winemaking comes into play, with hand-picked grapes, small-batch production, and extended aging. These wines offer incredible depth, length, and structure, with a seamless integration of oak, luxurious textures, and complex layers of flavour that evolve in the glass. They’re often sourced from iconic vineyards with limited production, making them rare finds.
That said, price alone doesn’t dictate quality—there are exceptional finds at every price point. The key is knowing what style you prefer and how the fruit & winemaking align with your tastes.
Our Top 8!
1. 2023 Crittenden Estate 'Kangerong' Chardonnay (16 bottles available) - Special $39.00
2. 2023 Picardy Chardonnay (New Release) - Special $50.00
3. 2023 Nocturne ‘Sub Regional’ Chardonnay (Pre-Order Arriving Nov 4th) - Special $35.00
4. 2021 Lowestoft Estate Chardonnay (24 bottles available) Special - $63.00
5. 2023 Moss Wood Chardonnay – Special $89.00
6. 2017 Xanadu ‘Steven’s Road’ Chardonnay (17 bottles available) – Special $95.00
7. 2022 Cullen ‘Kevin John’ Chardonnay (12 bottles) – Special $175.00
8. 2021 Penfolds Yattarna Chardonnay Magnum – Special $399.00
Pre-arrival prices, landing in store Nov 4th!
92 points Ray Jordan
I just know this will be a wine of tremendous appeal. The aromas open up immediately with creamy melon and citrus aromas touched with a little lightly roasted cashew and meal. The light bodied palate displays the bright fruit of the vintage with just a light touch of oak. Has a nice lemon zip on the finish. It’s a wine for current drinking.
Julian Langworthy, Winemaker Notes
2023, a vintage of Epicness. It was goldilocks personified and you all know what goldilocks liked, she liked things just right. It was cool yet sunny, had great spring rain but lovely long largely dry growing season. As such I it would be amiss if the wine didn’t mirror this amazing season but fortunately it does….
93 points - Ned Godwin, Halliday Wine Companion
Fermented wild before spending 11 months in oak (20% new), this sits somewhere between a flinty Chablis-inspired expression and a more relaxed wine from the Maconnais. Comparisons such as these are effete, but useful. After all, Burgundy is the benchmark when it comes to this great variety. Think white peach, oatmeal and vanilla, given fine support by a thread of juicy acidity. Delicious.
91 points - Huon Hooke, The Real Review
Medium yellow colour with obvious dissolved CO2. The aroma is youthful, fresh and reserved, with some peachy, stone fruit and fresh herb notes, the palate soft and round and a tad straightforward. Balanced, refreshing acidity. An attractive wine, with a future.
96 Points - Ray Jordan
The beauty and pristine nature of this great vintage shine through in this thoroughly beautiful chardonnay. On the nose aromas of nectarine and peach merge with a splash of citrus and a layer of meal. Richer notes of crème brulee and lightly roasted cashew emerge from somewhere deep in the palate. It’s a finer style yet there is sustained persistence through the palate. A delicate chardonnay with so much character and style. Love it.
96 Points - Arron Brasher, The Real Review
Lovely, lifted and complex aromas of grapefruit pith, just-ripe white stone fruit, white flowers and a lick of struck match. The palate is powerful, textured and mouth-filling, with plenty of nectarine and peach at the core, along with citrus, grilled nuts and mineral tang. Long, layered and a delicious example of chardonnay. Plenty of life ahead of it
Gold - Royal Hobart Wine Show 2023
Gold - Royal Hobart Wine Show 2022
95 Points Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion (August 2023)
Tamar Valley/Coal River Valley/Tasman Peninsula-sourced Chardonnay; matured in large format French oak for 10 months. An immediate wash of mealy lemon, grapefruit, white peach and nectarine fruit notes along with hints of fine spice, white flowers, flint, crushed river stone, nougat, oyster shell and sexy French oak. There is a swirl of struck-match complexity in the mix, and the wine presents an expansive palate with plenty of clarity, tension and complexity. A long, dreamy finish, too.
95 Points Erin Larkin, Robert Parker Wine Advocate (March 2023)
Tasted beside the 2020, this 2021 Estate Chardonnay is finer and tighter; the acidity has a rapier-like cut and thrust and engages in a parry with the fruit on the mid-palate. It has notes of preserved citrus, yellow peach, curry leaf and juniper—a hint of sage, even? There are elements in here that teeter on the brink of green, but it provides balance, depth and edge to what is otherwise a very concentrated (almost yellow-fruited) wine.
97 Points - Ray Jordan
One of the best chardies yet from Moss Wood, and that’s saying something with the quality of wines over the years. The nose is an immediately captivating combo of lemon curd, quince and cashew with just a subtle lift of zest. The palate has a sprightly energy with a crisp chalky acidity sustaining and focussing through to a very long finish, The winemaking approach is fairly simple with no wild yeasts, but the result is outstanding.
Moss Wood’s Recent Chardonnay Reviews & Awards
2017 Chardonnay
2020’s Chardonnay of the Year, Matthew Jukes Top 100 Australian Wines 2019 & 2020
99 Points - James Halliday’s Top 100, The Australian, November 2018
“This is a truly beautiful chardonnay, seamless perfection from the first sip. It is liquid gold.”
2021 Chardonnay
98 points Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot
“This is the very best Moss Wood Chardonnay I have seen for a very long time. This sits with the finest the region can offer.”
95 Points - James Halliday, Halliday Wine Companion
From the bottom 20 rows of the vineyard, Gingin clone, hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed, wild-fermented in French oak (25% new), stirred throughout 9 months maturation, no mlf. More elegant than many of Margaret River's best, lower alcohol and higher acidity one reason. Neither sibling relies on oak, this with a laser-bright singular flavour signature.
95 Points - Nick Stock, JamesSuckling.com
A very attractive array of bright and ripe lemons and white peaches on offer with a flinty edge. The palate is cool and composed with chalky nuances, as well as a fresh and crunchy kick of acidity that lights the tightly coiled finish.
93 Points - Huon Hooke, The Real Review
Light, bright yellow hue. The nose is oaky, grapefruity and relatively straightforward in its youth, with herb and green melon aromas, a light hand on the oak and bracing acidity to finish. A crisp, tangy, appetising wine. Intense, too, and long on the aftertaste. It's very youthful and fresh and clearly has a brilliant future.
93 Points - Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
The 2017 Stevens Road Chardonnay is salty and has notes of capers, grilled peach and that same lanolin/cheesecloth character that is present in the Black Label. It is pithy, fine and textural. This is very good, showing more evolution in the fruit than some of the older wines on the table—classically 2017.
Celebrated by critics with outstanding scores, this wine is harvested in Kevin John’s 100th birth year. Vanya Cullen and the team at Cullen Vineyards have gone from strength to strength and each vintage leaves us looking ahead to what they will bring us next!
Made from 100% dry farmed biodynamically certified vines planted in 1976-1988.
97+ Points, Erin Larkin – Robert Parkers Wine Advocate
The Chardonnays I have tasted so far from the 2022 vintage in Margaret River remind me of the 2014s, in their soft acidity and primal, almost unbound fruit power. Here, the 2022 Kevin John Chardonnay leads with crushed nuts, salted yellow peach, red apple skins, preserved citrus rind, yuzu, green tea and saltbush, before tumbling into the flavours in the mouth. Toffee apple, nuts, curry leaf and saffron. Concentrated, piercing and intense. The acid envelops the tongue and holds it hostage, while the fruit explodes with power. The Gingin clone is on show here. The wine trails to a soft, juicy finish. It is lingering, very good, excellent, even better after a gentle decant and served in a big Burgundy glass. 13.5% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Drink 2023 - 2037.
96 Points, Ned Godwin MW – James Suckling.com
Glorious aromas of buckwheat, like cold soba noodles, melding with quince, roasted nuts, tangerine and apricot pith. Always an incredibly intense mid-weighted expression, this iteration is gentler and more refined in a sense, due to immaculate poise and drinkability quotient. I often find this wine a bit too much. Not this vintage. Maritime freshness and a waft of unresolved CO2 carry length. Compact and filigreed. Almost breezy, intuitive of feel and effortless, in the very best sense of the word. Drink or hold. Screw cap.
100 Points - Andrew Caillard MW
Beautifully concentrated chardonnay with superb pure grapefruit, lime, stone fruit flavours, fine lacy textures, impressive mid-palate generosity, underlying marzipan, vanilla notes and fresh flinty complexity. Finishes minerally and long. Electrifying wine with wonderful volume, fruit definition, weight, complexity and energy. Highlights a marvellous vintage and years of improving the style.
98 Points -Ken Gargett, World of Fine Wine
I can’t recall a better Yattarna than this one, going all the way back to the initial 1995. Sure, it has the advantage of hailing from a great vintage, but the team has not missed a beat here. Everything in its place. An immaculate Chardonnay, simply world-class. A very pale lemon color, this is a beautifully elegant Chardonnay, wonderfully refined. Pristine, exquisitely structured, impeccable balance and finesse. There are notes of citrus—notably, fresh lemons, more Amalfi than Meyer. A hint of woodsmoke and wet stones with that fine minerally backing. Gentle nuts and toast. There are hints of oatmeal on the palate, and a whiff of honey. Such a gorgeous texture, so seductive. Juicy acidity and incredible length, with complexity already emerging. This is a brilliant wine, with a future of at least ten to 15 years. There is serious intensity on such a long finish. The inimitable Len Evans used to say that no variety had such a persistent finish as quality Chardonnay. This wine provides compelling evidence to support that. Anyone with well-cellared bottles in a decade will think this score miserly, but for now, 98.
98 points and Top 100 Wines of 2024 - Dave Brookes, Halliday Wine Companion
The 2021 Yattarna will go down as one of the greats. Launched in 1998 with the 1995 vintage, the Yattarna is one of Australia's benchmark chardonnays. Like its sibling Bin 311, grapes are sourced from Tasmania, Tumbarumba and the Adelaide Hills and the wine is matured in French oak barriques (70% new) for nine months. Pale straw with green flashes and an inviting aromatic profile of oatmeal-dotted apple, white peach, nectarine and citrus fruits cut with hints of fine spice, almond croissant, roasted hazelnuts, lemon curd, washed-rind cheese, white flowers and a filigreed lacework of struck-match complexity that arcs through the wine. A picture of grace and latent power with a core of pure grapefruit, white peach and citrus riding on rails of minerally acid far into the distance. Elegance writ large. Drink by 2040.
98 Points - Tyson Stelzer
The confidence with which Yattarna delivers incredible concentration in the presence of profound tension, heightened fruit definition with outstanding oak support and grand endurance yet immediately enticing allure is reminiscent of the inimitable grand cru set of Montrachet itself. Pristine white fruits are set to a scintillating and mineral-fine acid line of profound energy that sets off a brilliant, glittering finish of pinpoint accuracy and enduring drive. It is again one of the finest Australian chardonnays of the year.
98 Points - Erin Larkin, Wine Advocate
Aromatically reticent upon pouring, the 2021 Yattarna Chardonnay offers pan-fried shallots and cumin seeds, Greek yogurt, saffron, curry leaf and brine. In the mouth, the wine is firm and concentrated; the phenolics hold the fruit to ransom and exude a fierceness that I personally find quite pleasurable, but they may confront some. This has structure and line and is ductile, porous, open weave and spicy, and it's true to form in style and unerringly long through the finish. It's a wine that will come alive in time, but at this early stage in its life, it offers a most favorable view of Australian Chardonnay (from three regions: Tasmania, 81%; Tumbarumba, 10%; and Adelaide Hills, 9%). 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap. Drink: 2023 - 2041