Winemaker Notes
The fresh structured mid palate retains its texture but opens slowly into generous sweet banana butterscotch flavors with hints of smoky bacon and green olive tastes before finishing with a persistent developed stone-fruit and chalky texture.
A mature d'Arenberg Olive Grove Chardonnay produces a rich, rolling generous and complex finish balanced by long, clean, refreshing acidity as have more than a decade and a half of previous vintages.
Drink now or cellar for 2–10 years with seafood, as an aperitif, with pasta with a creamy sauce, chicken, veal as well as salad.
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.
Known for opulent red wines with intense power and concentration, McLaren Vale is home to perhaps the most “classic” style of Australian Shiraz. Vinified on its own or in Rhône Blends, these hot-climate wines are deeply colored and high in extract with signature hints of dark chocolate and licorice. Cabernet Sauvignon is also produced in a similar style.
Whites, often made from Chardonnay or Sauvignon Blanc tend to be opulent and full of tropical, stone and citrus fruit.