Hoddles Creek Estate is a family winery in the Upper Yarra Valley, established by the D'Anna family in 1997 with the first wines released from the early 2000s. The 1er Chardonnay is made exclusively from estate-grown fruit on cool, elevated sites, where deep grey-brown loam over clay and a long, cool growing season give slow, even ripening. The vines are close-planted and hand-tended. The 2024 Yarra Valley vintage was widely regarded as excellent, with a mild summer and clean, unhurried ripening producing concentrated fruit with bright natural acidity - the raw material behind this rich yet energetic release.

Fruit was whole-bunch pressed and fermented in French oak barriques, including a proportion of new oak, using wild yeast to build texture and complexity. The wine was matured on lees in barrel, in the estate's customary manner with lees stirring and malolactic fermentation to add breadth, before bottling. Winemaker Franco D'Anna aims for richness balanced by tension, and this release shows plush grilled-peach and nectarine flavour carried by fine, savoury reduction, cedar and a long, complete finish.