Hill Smith Estate Eden Valley Chardonnay 2013
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Robert
Parker
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
Pair with mustard and white wine braised chicken with a side of steamed greens.
Professional Ratings
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2013 Chardonnay has a slight whiff of sulfides, which soon gives way to apple and peach flavors with brioche and almond nuances. Medium-bodied, there's an awful lot of savory flavors going on in the mouth - particularly for this price point, and a beautiful satiny texture with great freshness and length. Great value!
Other Vintages
2011-
Wine
Spectator
Since the wine was released in 1980, Hill-Smith Estate Sauvignon Blanc has been recognized as one of Australia’s finest Sauvignon Blancs. Our Chardonnays from the Adelaide Hills and Eden Valley are contemporary wines crafted from fruit cultivated in premium Chardonnay growing regions.
These wines honour the contribution that Wyndham Hill-Smith OBE (1909 - 1989) made to wine, sport and life in Australia. A talented amateur artist, Wyndham painted the front label landscape scenes on all three wines.
Well known as a cricketer, Wyndham Hill-Smith both shared the crease with Bradman and faced Larwood at his peak. He was a keen thoroughbred owner, with more than 500 race wins, and well recognised as a generous host and charming raconteur.
Importantly, Wyndham oversaw in the 1960s and ’70s the innovative return of viticulture from the floor of the Barossa Valley to the cooler climes of the high altitude Barossa ranges, known as Eden Valley. In these conditions, finesse, elegance and understated power replace the robust and earthy style of the lower altitudes.
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.
Higher in elevation and topographically more dramatic than the Barossa Valley floor, Eden Valley abuts it to its south and east. While it is a bit of an extension of Barossa, Eden Valley is topographically different than the pastoral Barossa Valley, and is composed of rocky hills and eucalyptus groves.
Recognizing Eden Valley’s potential with Riesling in the 1960s and 70s, producers started to move their Riesling production from Barossa to these better sites where schist soils on hilltops would produce more steely, tart and age-worthy examples. A most famous site, planted by Colin Gramp, called Steingarten, today produces one of the most outstanding Australian Rieslings. Youthful Eden Valley Rieslings express floral, grapefruit and mineral, while with time in the bottle, they become increasingly toasty and complex.
Riesling isn’t the only grape the region can grow; undeniably at lower altitudes Shiraz does very well. Mount Edelstone is a notable vineyard as well as the Hill of Grace, which boasts healthy Shiraz vines well over 100 years old. This is the only Australian region where Merlot has a made a name for itself and Chardonnay can be spectacular, particularly from the High Eden subregion in the southern valley.