A chardonnay from the Yarra Valley’s Oakridge has won James Halliday’s wine of the year

Mother nature threw everything she could at the Yarra Valley in 2022, but from that maelstrom Oakridge has produced a chardonnay that has won James Halliday’s wine of the year.

Oakridge Wines’ chief winemaker David Bicknell, left, and senior viticulturist Steve Faulkner with their wine of the year. Picture: Nadir Kinani

Two years ago Steve Faulkner looked to the heavens above Victoria’s bountiful Yarra Valley and braced for an onslaught of the elements that only mother nature could conjure up: rain, hail, bushfire smoke and a pandemic.

In her fury she threw everything she could at the Oakridge winery in Victoria and yet two years later Faulkner – its senior viticulturist with 20 vintages under his belt – and rock-star Oakridge winemaker David Bicknell were able to produce a stunning chardonnay amid that maelstrom that on Wednesday night was named wine of the year in the prestigious 2025 Halliday Wine Companion Awards.

“We were coming out of lockdown in 2021 and we had some record rainfall through October, November and a little bit into December. We also had hail in November, hail at the start of January, and then it sort of got a little bit warmer, then we also had planned burns so we started getting a little bit of smoke,” Faulkner said as he recalled the painful birth of the now award-winning wine, the Oakridge 864 Drive Block Funder & Diamond Vineyard Chardonnay 2022.

“So we had all the challenges you could imagine, and managed to pull off a great wine.”

For Faulkner, who tends to the Oakridge vineyards to deliver to the winemakers grapes that will one day hopefully become a champion wine, he believes “it’s all about the dirt”, and the history of the block that made the Halliday wine of the year was always known to have something special going on deep underground.

“We already knew this Funder & Diamond vineyard is special, as it has repeatedly reached really high levels of achievements and our job is just to focus on what we can do every year to try to be ­better than the previous year.

“So it’s not about knowing that one year in particular was special. It’s about just improving on what is already a fantastic vineyard.”

Bicknell, who has led the Oakridge winemaking team for 22 years, says he has been taking fruit from the Funder & Diamond block since 2011 and it has now established itself as a superb patch of the Yarra Valley that is delivering year after year.

“It has got a very well regarded pedigree, and this wine has been the best chardonnay before and runner up before, and so every year we are expecting it to produce something extremely good and that’s generally the case.

“And really sometimes the wines are defined by the seasons as much as anything else. We had a string of cooler, wetter vintages and 2022 was one of those vintages where we just got a little bit of extra warmth and a bit more sunshine and it has just given that wine a little bit extra.”

He says the 2022 “just has that little bit extra dimension” and describes the now award-winning chardonnay as holding “complexity and depth”.

“But it also has a real line and length about it as well; it has dimension, and what we are searching for with these wines is balance, harmony, so there isn’t a single attribute in the wine that defines it, everything is in balance in terms of weight, length and texture.”

The Oakridge chardonnay stood out to the Halliday judges among the more than 7500 wines from more than 1100 wineries that were tasted for the 2025 Halliday Wine Companion book, the bible for wine lovers. It was also awarded white wine of the year.

“It sometimes feels like it is a dartboard spinning around and out of all of the thousands of wines submitted to come out on top is a very nice feeling,” Bicknell said.

Victoria’s Yarra Valley shone, led by Oakridge for its wine of the year and Giant Steps which took home the winery of the year award. Other winners included shiraz of the year/red wine of the year given to Yarra Yering Dry Red Wine No. 2 2022, Yarra Valley, and sauvignon blanc of the year for Terre a Terre Crayeres Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2023, Wrattonbully, South Australia.

Winemaker of the year went to Liz Silkman of First Creek Wines and Silkman Wines in NSW, with other award winners coming from the Margaret River, Geelong, Barossa Valley and Orange.