Malcolm Jolley talks to Wakefield’s Justin Taylor about his family’s winery, Chardonnay and COVID…
One of the very last people I met professionally last March, before the first COVID lockdown was Justin Taylor. Taylor, who is part of the family that founded the Clare Valley’s Wakefield winery, was in Toronto to promote the Estate series of Wakefield wines, including the 2018 Chardonnay. That vintage was the first to feature a special back label with a thermometer that told you when the wine was at the ideal temperature. Now, nearly a year later, Wakefield has released the Wakefield Estate Chardonnay 2018 ($16.95 | LCBO# 711556) and I thought that would be a good excuse to catch-up with Justin Taylor to see how he has been doing over these frought months. In the Zoom conversation recorded in the video below, we discuss the changes COVID has wrought on the wine business, how Australia has been doing, what makes the 2019 vintage of the Wakefield Estate Chardonnay a little different from previous years and we settle, for all time, the debate on when to serve cheese at a dinner party.
About the wine: at $17 the 2019 Wakefield Estate Chardonnay is certainly worth a try if you’re a fan of the grape. It’s not your father’s Aussie Chard, but it does have a seasoning of oak and a good weight on the mid-palate that brings a bit of chew to it big stone and citrus fruit notes and food friendly acidity.
