Winemaker Notes
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2014 Reserve Chardonnay was cropped at five tons per hectare and matured in 66% new French oak. It has a very refined bouquet that holds everything back for now, though it is well defined and offers fleeting scents of white flowers as it opens in the glass. The palate is well balanced with fine weight, a keen thread of acidity and a lovely blood orange-tinged finish that is very Burgundy-like in style. This is a beautiful Chardonnay from winemaker Carl van der Merwe.
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Wine Spectator
A ripe, juicy style, with pear, quince and peach flavors rolling along, lined with a light hazelnut edge on the finish. On the showy side but has ample zip.
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.
South Africa’s most famous wine-producing district, Stellenbosch, surrounds the historic town with the same name; fine winemaking here dates back to the late 1600s. Its valleys of granite, sandstone and alluvial loam soils between the towering blue-grey mountains of Stellenbosch, Simonsberg and Helderberg have the capacity to produce beautiful wines from many varieties. The climate is warm Mediterranean, tempered by the cool Atlantic air of nearby False Bay.
Perhaps most well-known for its Pinotage and Bordeaux blends, Stellenbosch also produces noteworthy wines from Syrah, Chenin blanc, Chardonnay and Sauvignon blanc. The district’s wards—Banghoek, Bottelary, Devon Valley, Jonkershoek Valley, Papegaaiberg, Polkadraai Hills and Simonsberg-Stellenbosch—all produce distinctive wines from vines with relatively low yields.