Oakridge Wines

Chardonnay held at the cellar door

Chardonnay sets the line for David Bicknell , winemaker at Oakridge Wines in Coldstream, where the cellar door looks over the Yarra Valley. His work here is tied most closely to the variety: Oakridge 864 Chardonnay, Willowlake Vineyard Chardonnay 2023, and MUSEUM RELEASE Hazeldene Vineyard Chardonnay 2017 carry that thread in named bottles rather than in rhetoric. The discipline is continuity, a house register kept steady enough that chardonnay became the clearest marker of his winemaking identity at the estate. Oakridge does not state his apprenticeship or the teachers behind his bench, and the wines carry vineyard names, release names, and the repeated pressure of one variety asking for restraint. In a winery with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Shiraz in view, Bicknell’s signature narrows the field. That narrowing matters. It puts attention where a winemaker’s choices can be read most plainly, in acidity, shape, and the way a release carries site without losing the hand that made it.

Still wines from a small cellar

The program at Oakridge is built around still red and still white wines from the Yarra Valley, with sustainable practice named as the estate’s working philosophy and a small scale shaping the feel of the cellar door. The house presents Pinot Noir and Chardonnay alongside Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, a set that gives Bicknell both the lighter frame of the valley and the deeper register of red fruit and structure. No fermentation temperatures, barrel figures, picking dates, or case numbers are published by the house, so the measurements that can be held here are the ones attached to releases and tenure: 2023 on Willowlake Vineyard Chardonnay, 2017 on the museum Hazeldene bottling, and the long span of Bicknell’s work at Oakridge from 2002 to 2026. The method shows itself less through disclosed recipe than through repetition. Chardonnay returns, vineyard names return, and the cellar keeps asking for the same judgment at each pass.

Windows over the Yarra Valley

The tasting room sits elevated above the vines, with floor-to-ceiling windows drawing the hills and mountains into the room before a glass is lifted. Natural light does much of the work. The setting is crisp and modern rather than theatrical, quiet enough for the wine to keep its own pace, and close enough to the vineyard view that the cellar door does not need a heavy hand with explanation. This is the kind of room where a small pour can slow the table: Chardonnay against the windows, Pinot Noir with the slope in sight, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz held in the same quiet register. The craft remains in the glass, but the place gives it a clean field of attention.

The next work is already named

Bicknell’s public next chapter is Bicknell FC, the small family winemaking business he has said he and his family started in 2011. At Oakridge, 864 and Hazeldene Vineyard Chardonnay 2017 still tie him to Coldstream, with Willowlake Vineyard Chardonnay 2023 also in the mix.