Matthew Jukes: 100 Best Australian Wines Report 2023/2024 The Eighteenth Edition
“The wines mentioned in this Report are Australia’s magnificent vinous vanguard. It is my great pleasure to showcase them nationally and internationally in a continued effort to inform wine lovers worldwide about the most outstanding wines made in this beautiful country”. – Matthew Jukes.
2021 Polperro Estate Chardonnay, Mornington Peninsula – Matthew Jukes
” Polperro has appeared in 100 Best twice before, and it is the sommelier brigade, in particular, who do backflips when they taste this wine. While most of the wines in this Report lead with immediately identifiable fruit flavours, and it is these notes from which we hang our opinions, it is the antifruit that impresses me greatly in winemaker Sam Coverdale’s works of art. While this might not be a comfortable wine to taste because it asks more questions than it answers, everything makes much more sense when you settle down and drink it. There is all of Chardonnay’s grandeur here with none of the frippery or foolishness. This is a stripped-back, energetic, scouringly fresh wine with genius length, and as I type this note, it troubles me greatly that I don’t have any bottles in my cellar. Polperro does this to your mind – you crave its flavours and want it in your collection, like a piece of art that is just out of reach. I have been told that I cannot write up 2020 Polperro Pinot Noir because it is virtually out of stock, and the 2021 has yet to arrive on our shores. If you get there first, I will be impossibly jealous because this red wine has almost as much appeal as the blisteringly attractive white!”
2019 Even Keel Syrah, Canberra District – Matthew Jukes
“Even Keel is Sam Coverdale’s (of Polperro fame) incredible diffusion brand, and unlike Paul Scorpo above, who makes his Shiraz on his property in Mornington, Sam looks further afield, in this case, high up in the hilly Canberra region. I am conscious that I have no Clonakilla in this year’s report, and I am not sure why, but Even Keel’s beautiful wine makes up for Tim Kirk’s absence. Bloody, mineral, rocky and rose petal-soaked, this is a delicious, mouthwatering wine with excellent freshness alongside a confusingly dark core. It is difficult to decide whether this is light red wine with a midnight black hue, a medium-weight wine with a pristine finish or an intense wine with a slippery texture. I give up because it is all of the above and more”.
