Description
This single‑vineyard estate, first planted in 1995 in Dixons Creek in the Yarra Valley, sits on 11.2 hectares of well‑drained, gently sloping vines sheltered by the Toolangi State Forest and oriented to the northeast. For many years the fruit was crafted by respected winemakers including Rick Kinzbrunner, Franco D’Anna and David Bicknell, but since Helmut Konecsny, the owner of Rochford Wines, purchased Toolangi Vineyards in 2017, winemaker Kaspar Hermann has elevated the site’s individuality and expression. Hermann brings experience from respected Yarra Valley estates—including eight years at Mount Mary—along with time at Seville Estate, Coldstream Hills and Punch. He works closely with viticulturist John Evans, whose two decades of Yarra Valley experience guide the vineyard’s thoughtful management. The soils—fine silty clay loam over richer clay silts—provide a natural balance of vigour and fruitfulness, while the team’s practices, from shoot‑thinning to enhance airflow to minimal spraying and under‑vine mulching, support healthy ripening and a thriving ecosystem.
About this wine: White wax cap over DIAM cork. Toolangi’s F Block is a one-hectare plot perched on the highest, easternmost sector of the 11-hectare Dixon’s Creek vineyard. Nestled in the corner, within touching distance of the Toolangi State Forest to the northeast and in the afternoon shadow of a large hill to the south, it’s a well-sheltered plot. This position helps preserve the high levels of natural acidity critical to maintaining balance from a site famed for powerful flavour. The soils are shallow and rocky, with more white clay than lower down, which Kaspar Hermann credits with the wine’s sculpted, chalky personality. Yields are always low, rarely providing more than seven or eight barrels, and in this poor flowering year, Hermann had enough for just five. The 21-year-old vines are Gingin clone and produce thick-skinned, full-throated fruit with plenty of spicy nuance and phenolic structure.
The 2024 season was mild and calm with an easy-going spring that provided the best flowering in years. The wines from this year show and distinct regional charm and a pleasing ripeness to complement the chalky, mineral edge. As aways with Toolangi’s ‘grand cru’, the grapes grapes were hand-picked and whole-bunch pressed into barriques (20% new); wild ferment with around a third of the wine going through malo. If this isn’t one of Yarra Valley’s finest Chardonnays, then we don’t know wine.
