Winemaker Notes
An intense, mineral wine fully ripe but lean, taught and intense with savory, creamy elements. Fragrant notes of orange blossom, nectarine stone, spice and subtle nuttiness are usual with a vibrant, tight, long palate highlighted by clean acidity, wonderful texture and fine length.
Professional Ratings
-
Wine & Spirits
The vines for this wine were 30 years old in 2018, 3.7 acres of chardonnay planted in volcanic soils with some quartz (Michael Dhillon uses the most quartz-rich sector of the vineyard for his Quartz Chardonnay, also recommended here). Spontaneously fermented and aged in French oak barrels (25 percent new), this wine completely melds that oak influence into its nuanced depths of flavor—quince and white cranberry, some ginger and lime, all of it coming together in a complexity that feels naked and clean, with the petrichor scent of a cooling rain. An exciting New World chardonnay, expressing its soil with delicacy and precision.
-
James Suckling
Very rich here with attractively flinty, peach and lemon aromas that lead to a powerful and fresh palate with a sleek, fluid and very juicy impression. Great balance.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Nestled into the tip of its southeastern coastline, Victoria is Australia’s smallest mainland state, second most populous and third largest wine producer. Victoria includes the cool regions of Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Geelong, made famous mainly by impressive Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
The more inland Heathcote and Bendigo lead the way for complex and textured, full-bodied reds. Rutherglen’s fortified wines compete among the best on the planet.