Giaconda chardonnay 2004 review

Giaconda Estate Vineyard chardonnay 2004, Beechworth (tasted 8/7/12)

A big wine.  So rich in solid texture that it could be confused with many red wines. 2004 is what I consider to be the first year of the new normal:  warmer being the norm with ripening a few weeks before what we used to consider average.  (there can be a debate about whether 1998 and 1999 were part of the new normal or the last of the old weather pattern but just warm years: it’s slightly irrelevant, because there were so few Beechworth wines or wineries at that stage.)

In one way it’s a typical Giaconda wine: powerful, complex, with a great deal of texture and structure.  (It has a really lovely dense and complex middle palate, that part of many modern wines which is completely missing. )  I suppose it’s those characters that define quality.  And also it has a minerality which everyone is now banging on about.  But in another way it has less Giaconda character: very little matchstick pong : or is it just bound up in the total package that it now seems part of the undefinable complexity.  Not a simple wine, with a little of every flavour you can name in a good chardonnay: oak, muesli, stone fruit, nuts, toffee, cabbage, dirty socks and spring water.

This is a lovely wine which seems to be at maturity, but not fading yet.  It has structure, power, complexity and length. 

Probably hard to find, and probably expensive due to its high demand.  5/7 points. (or is it 6?)