Helen & Joey Inara Chardonnay 2017
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Wilfred
Wong -
Wine
Enthusiast -
James
Suckling -
Wine
Spectator
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
The 2017 Inara Chardonnay is the perfect wine to enjoy on its own or with food. Thefresh banana, yellow apple and ripe peach aromas and flavors are complexed by a touch of clove andvanilla oak. The wine has a clean finish with lingering flavors of apple and peach.
Our 2017 Inara Chardonnay would be a great accompaniment to seafood tempura.
Professional Ratings
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Wilfred Wong of Wine.com
Medium straw color; dried herbs in the aroma, very good, nice depth; medium bodied, tight knit on the palate; dry, fine acidity, well balanced; mineral, chalky flavors; lively aftertaste. (Tasted: April 13, 2018, San Francisco, CA)
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Wine Enthusiast
Vibrant gold in color, this is a bombastic but characterful Chardonnay that bursts with aromas of guava, pineapple rind and butter beans with ground ginger undertones and a slightly saline, wet stone nuance. The palate is rich but restrained. The slightly odd green characters of the nose disappear in the mouth, and mineral notes flow through to the finish.
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James Suckling
Some pastry-like aromas with gently nutty and biscuity notes across melon and pear-scented fruit. A smooth, supple and bright pear fruit palate.
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Wine Spectator
Peach, nectarine, melon, spice, butterscotch; succulent, refreshing.
Helen & Joey purchased an already established Yarra Valley Vineyard in 2010. Since then Helen, the female owner and operator, and her small team have worked tirelessly to farm the vines better to produce better fruit to make better wine. The results are paying off with estate wines showing remarkable Yarra Valley character. The cool growing conditions of the Yarra Valley produce wines with far more elegance, restraint and aromatics than normally associated with Australian wine.
Helen and Joey Estate is located in the Gruyere sub-district of the Yarra Valley, right at the base of the Warramate Ranges. Vineyards in this area are associated with classic cool climate varieties such as Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, but also has a strong track regard of producing elegant but long lived reds from varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon.
Jamie McGlade is the viticulturist tasked with improving the vineyard and does so by building the vitality and health of the soils and vines alike. The end objective is to achieve a quality of fruit that requires a minimum of intervention in the winery. Jamie has previously managed renowned Yarra Valley vineyards such as, Mount Mary and Yering Station.
Our senior winemaker is Meg Brodtmann MW. Meg was the first Australian born female to be admitted to the Institute of Masters of Wine. Her focus is on making truly delicious wines that express the elegance, restraint and perfumed character of the Yarra Valley.
Interventions and manipulations are kept to a minimum. Meg is one of the female winemakers that founded Yarra Valley Women of Wine.
Helen and Joey Estate is proudly family owned and operated.
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.
As the most important area of wine production in Victoria today, the Yarra Valley is most popular for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, which account for over half of vineyard acreage. A gentle, rolling and rural region alongside the Margaret River, the Yarra Valley has a cool maritime climate with a lengthy growing season, perfect for these cool-climate varieties.
Two styles of Pinot Noir are possible here. The warmer Lower Yarra Valley with sandy, loam soils, produces plush and fruity Pinot Noir while the cooler, higher-elevation Upper Yarra Valley with soils of young red basalt, produces more angular and mineral-driven Pinot Noir.
Yarra Valley Chardonnay is among the best in Australia. To preserve the floral aromatics and fresh citrus flavors for which this area’s Chardonnay is so appreciated, time in barrel is restrained (though barrel fermentation is common). The best Yarra Valley Chardonnays display brilliant acidity, leesy characteristics, citrus, stone fruit and flavors of ginger and spice.
Shiraz and Cabernet find success in parts of this region as well.