Winemaker Notes
#77 Wine Spectator Top 100 of 2024
Bright and vibrant in appearance. Abundant aromas of butterscotch, ripe citrus, pistachios and golden delicious apple on the nose. The palate is fresh and linear with good backbone of acidity. Full bodied with an elegant structure, flavours of citrus, golden delicious apple and vanilla follow. Lean & crisp the wine concludes with a long tart finish.
Professional Ratings
-
James Suckling
Flint, hazelnuts, lemon peel and apricots on the nose, followed by salted butter on the palate. It’s bright and salty yet buttery, with a medium to full body and a long, delicious.
-
Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 Chardonnay is bright and complex with succulent lemony notes, showing the citrus sitting apart from the oak as well as its youthful state. Burgundian in style and with lively acidity, elements of apples and dusty white flowers are apparent, while the palate could achieve better precision with more fine-tuning. Medium-bodied and with 13.1% alcohol, malolactic fermentation was suppressed to create a fresher expression of Chardonnay before it rested in 60% new barrels for nine months.
-
Wine Spectator
Bright and snappy on the palate, offering ripe green apple and cherry fruit, with blood orange peel and salted almond notes. Sleek and minerally on the refreshing finish.
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.
One of the most famous and celebrated wine regions imported throughout Europe during the 18th century, Constantia was founded in 1685 by a Dutch governor named Simon van der Stel who ran a successful wine farm for many years.
Constantia vineyards, planted in ancient soil beds, climb up the east-facing slopes of the Constantiaberg, where the vines receive cool sea breezes blowing in from False Bay.