Winemaker Notes
Enticing aromas of brown sugar and vanilla custard entwine with a bright citrus note reminiscent of home-made lemon curd. The palate is layered with ripe golden
peaches and caramelized figs, while being driven by a seam of flinty minerality. There is an earthy richness, evoking thoughts of freshly cut hay, roasted nuts and faint whiffs of wood smoke. A wine with hidden charms, tight structure and excellent ageing potential.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Aromas of ripe apples, pie crust and hints of flint and graphite. Medium- to full-bodied with plenty of fruit, from apples to oranges, as well as a hint of oak. It’s flavorful and long in the finish. Plenty going on here. Youthful and al dente.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Chardonnay is ripe and powerful, with intense fruit in the mouth, buttered popcorn characters and yellow peach. The acidity is as bright as the fruit is ripe, a characteristic of New Zealand Chardonnay that is both distinct and consistent. This is a little more obvious and fruit-driven than last year's iteration.
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Wine Spectator
Powerful and elegant, with flavors of grilled lemon, poached pear, peach preserves and litsea oil that are precise, juicy, smooth and intense on the finish, where a touch of toasted green tea lingers.
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.
An icon and leading region of New Zealand's distinctive style of Sauvignon blanc, Marlborough has a unique terroir, making it ideal for high quality grape production (of many varieties). Despite some common generalizations, which could be fairly justified given that Marlborough is responsible for 90% of New Zealand's Sauvignon blanc production, the wines from this region are actually anything but homogenous. At the northern tip of New Zealand’s South Island, the vineyards of Marlborough benefit from well-draining, stony soils, a dry, sunny climate and wide temperature fluctuations between day and night, a phenomenon that supports a perfect balance between berry ripeness and acidity.
The region’s king variety, Sauvignon blanc, is beloved for its pungent, aromatic character with notes of exotic tropical fruit, freshly cut grass and green bell pepper along with a refreshing streak of stony minerality. These wines are made in a wide range of styles, and winemakers take advantage of various clones, vineyard sites, fermentation styles, lees-stirring and aging regimens to differentiate their bottlings, one from one another.
Also produced successfully here are fruit-forward Pinot noirs (especially where soils are clay-rich), elegant Riesling, Pinot gris and Gewürztraminer.