Where previous vintages for the Crudo Chardonnay have come from the red volcanic soils of Tibooburra, recent bottling's have come off the Denton block, a northwest facing slope of granitic sand over heavy granite boulders. Luke notes the Denton soils and aspect bring a cleaner acid line to this wine. The winemaking credo follows last year's blueprint, except there was no skin contact employed this year. Lambert felt the vintage was so fine - "perfect" is how Luke summed it up - that he chose to pursue the utmost purity, thereby the entire crop was whole bunch pressed. Otherwise the "sony", as they say, remains the same. Wild yeast fermentation, old oak, no temperature control, zero fining or filtration and only minimal sulphur at bottling, and large (5,000-litre) French oak Foudre for maturation.

"There's going to be some very good white wines coming out of the Yarra Valley from vintage 2017, I think. Subdued wine, and while it has flavour, it's as much about texture as anything else. A little smokiness, lemon and peel, maybe white peach and almond, but quite winey rather than fruity. Fresh and crunchy acidity, green apple and lemon barley, a fine chalk dust texture and some milk powder stuff in there too. Finish has a particularly good amount of energy, and a gustatory crunch of pithy bitterness.
Pretty hard to stop drinking." 94 points, Gary Walsh, winefront.com.au