Bannockburn's top white, the S.R.H. comes off the oldest Chardonnay vines in the Olive Tree Hill vineyard and is named in recognition of Bannockburn's founder, Stuart Reginald Hooper. These twelve rows of 39-year-old vines are dry grown with roots well embedded in the ancient marine sediments that form the bedrock in this area. Typically, Bannockburn's S.R.H. rows seem to suck the minerality right out of their subsoil and deliver a spine tingling backbone of fresh, saline minerality to support the intense flavour and texture of this great wine.
The 2011 S.R.H. is a wine we have been following from its early days and it has brilliantly made good on its youthful promise. Yes, we are selling this wine and yes we should probably show some restraint but this is impossible when you have a glass of this wine in hand. Simply a great Chardonnay and a great wine of place. We actually think the Halliday score below, as good as it is, underrates the way the wine is tasting today. Expect incredible intensity of all kinds of citrus pith and rind, ground spices, complex leesy notes and solids and wildly perfumed length. For all the power and complexity, it is ultimately a wine of incredible finesse with a vibrant line of saline minerality (not acidity but mineral freshness) running the length of the palate. #unebomb! It's a wine that just keeps getting better and better with air, boding very well for its future in bottle. In general, the cooler the vintage, the more mineral and saline the S.R.H seems to be, although - as Halliday alludes to in this note - there is nothing here to suggest 2011 is anything other than a (sublimely) balanced vintage for Bannockburn Chardonnay. It is a highly unusual Australian Chardonnay, in that a: it was raised entirely in a single 1200-litre oval, b: 100% of the wine went through malolactic fermentation and c: it spent three years on lees!