My second Cowra Chardonnay for this evening; always fun to do some comparative tasting. Against to the just-tasted Cowra Estate, the balance of this Kalari is notably different, tending more towards a generous, peachier style, though still far from the sort of peaches and cream buxomness of old school, now-maligned Chardonnays.
The nose shows some vanilla ice cream oak along with a tiny bit of sulphur and not a lot of fruit. This doesn't sound great, but in fact it's attractive to smell, and the fruit is there, it's just bound up in the oak character at present. The palate is quite a different story. Here, the fruit flows more freely, an even mixture of white and yellow peach. On entry, sizzlier acidity than the Cowra Estate and a bigger presence in the mouth; this seems to present a bit more of everything across the board. The middle palate smoothes out with ripe peaches and cheap ice cream (you know, the ones that are more ice than cream), all underlined by lively, somewhat rough acidity that contributes level of sourness to the profile. The after palate thins out compared to what has come before, but the finish more than makes up for it with good continuity of fruit flavour and surprising length.
Another solid, straightforward Cowra Chardonnay, and one I might give a few months' further in bottle before drinking. These don't scale great heights but nor do I believe they set out (or need) to, as they present attractive fruit in a food-friendly package. Good value drinking.
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