2025 Dash Farms Chardonnay

Planted 1999, Dash Farms sits perched at over 450m asl on the Southern granitic slopes of Mt Alexander (Leanganook) looking back towards Mt Macedon and the Macedon Ranges. Like Ray-Monde, it sits just outside the Macedon Ranges GI. Ripening for Chardonnay occurs around a week earlier than my family’s vineyard Cobaw Ridge. These lean granite soils and high altitude confer both concentration and freshness at low sugar levels.
Once hand-harvested with careful sorting in the vineyard, the bunches were partially crushed by foot and very gently pressed. Overnight settling then occurs before transfer to a combination of new Stockinger 300l oak and Burgundian piece for fermentation and lees ageing for 12 months. This is then followed by four months in stainless steel on fine lees, before racking and bottling, unfined and unfiltered.
Pale with a green edge, Dash Farm’s offers restrained aromas of crushed rock, lemon and grapefruit rind, just ripe nectarine and spice. Flavours carry through to a dense and powerful palate with powdery phenolics, flinty, savoury complexity and a fine acid line, finishing creamy and long. 

"These are wines of incredible detail and complexity. Everything this man does is detailed and complex.Joshua’s technical sheets for his wines are works of art..."

- Matthew Jukes,MatthewJukes.com (UK)

"Occasionally, a winemaker comes along who has the gift of presence and crafts compelling wines. JoshCooperis one … such a talent, he could choose anywhere to make wine, yet Macedon Ranges is home."

- Jane Faulkner, The Wine Companion​

"Gary Farr (By Farr), Joshua Cooper and Robert Walters (Place of Changing Winds) should be changing perceptions of Australian wine. These are in many cases delicate, elegant, refined wines that deliver classic varietal expression and defy old stereotypes."

- Joe Czerwinski, RobertParker.com (USA)

"Josh Cooper’s wines are classic, medium-weight expressions of elegance and purity, with an Old World self-confidence and a carefully measured degree of winemaking input."

- Jeremy Oliver, Oliver's Wines

"Josh has established his own reputation as not only one of the region’s emerging talents but one of the best young winemakers in the country."

- Ken Gargett, The World of Fine Wine (UK)

"There’s an authenticity to his wines, a command, and a life."

- Campbell Mattinson, Halliday Wine Companion

"Joshua Cooperis a compelling talent; his thoughtful, low-intervention approach is yielding some truly exceptional, terroir-driven wines."

- Huon Hooke, The Real Review

"...Using grapes bought in from carefully chosen, non-mainstream sources ... however difficult the bottles may be to get into, their contents are pretty impressive."

- Jancis Robinson (UK)

Halliday Wine Companion - Best New Winery of the Year (2024)