Oakridge 864 Funder & Diamond Chardonnay 2022: Review
Oakridge 864 Funder & Diamond Chardonnay 2022 is a rockstar chardonnay. It’s the best chardonnay that I’ve tasted so far in 2024 but it’s better even than that: it’s an Australian classic in the making. It’s not released until September 2, 2024 officially though there’s priority (August) access to the wine via the Oakridge site. It’s a wine of powerful fruit, powerful oak, and extreme length. My tasting note concludes with the words “this wine lays down the law in the most certain of terms.” This wine won the Halliday Wine of the Year title and a more worthy winner you will not find.
The asking price for Oakridge 864 Funder & Diamond Chardonnay 2022 is $100. The recommended price of Oakridge 864 Chardonnay has been $90+ since the 2018 vintage.
Chardonnay is Australia’s strongest or best performing grape variety. Australian chardonnay stacks up best against the best wines of the world. Every year now Australia produces a score, or scores, of great chardonnay wines. If you were going to create a “one variety cellar”, and you wanted it to be the best of Australia’s best, this cellar should be stuffed full of chardonnay.
No one of course would or does do this. But it’s a thought.
In this context though, the ability of Oakridge 864 Chardonnay to consistently stand tallest, or among the tallest, in the Australian chardonnay forest is noteworthy. In times past the holy duo of Australian chardonnay has been Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, from Margaret River, and Giaconda Chardonnay, from Beechworth – both single vineyard wines. These two wines are still, now, as good or better than ever. But the landscape of Australian chardonnay gleams so brightly now that a significant number of wines, from both high profile and lesser known producers, warrant a place at the top of the Australian chardonnay canopy. Even so, if you wanted to keep the message simple and make the holy duo a trinity, then Oakridge 864 Chardonnay is the wine you’d add to the fork.
On The Winefront, we’ve reviewed 20 vintages of Oakridge 864 Chardonnay since the 2004 release. Seventeen of these have scored 95 or higher. Winefront is not a high scoring masthead. The Winefront has never scored an Australian chardonnay above 97 points. By comparison, The Real Review has scored 30 Australian chardonnays at 98 points or higher; Halliday Wine Companion (at last count) had, in its history, scored 102 Australian chardonnays at 98 points or higher*. I mention these scores not to elevate or denigrate anyone’s scoring – Philip Rich/Wine Companion got this wine 100% right – but simply to illustrate that Oakridge 864’s record of 17 chardonnays, since 2004, with a score of 95 points or higher on The Winefront is ‘out there’. Oakridge 864 Chardonnay is a wine generally made from a micro-climate. Such extreme high-end consistency shouldn’t be possible.
The above run of scores doesn’t include the soon-to-be-released 2022 vintage of Oakridge 864 Funder & Diamond Chardonnay. It will be reviewed on The Winefront shortly. It is safe to assume though, for now, that its rating will be high. It’s a brilliant wine and, in 2024 terms, simply the best.
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* I know these tallies courtesy of the analysis included in the outstanding 2023 Australian Chardonnay Year in Review article, by John Humphrey.