Winemaker Notes
The 2017 vintage was cool and windy with some weather episodes during harvest. This made hand harvesting crucial in maintaining the standard of the Estate Chardonnay that we have set for this wine. The nose is immediately fragrant, a hallmark of 2017, with a touch of citrus and peach. The texture supple and with a beautiful bracing acidity on the finish. The wine is delicious now and will provide beautiful drinking over the next 6 years.
Drink with seafood, chicken, pasta and risotto.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
This emanates a sense of vibrant fruit from the outset with white-nectarine and light mango aromas, laced with yellow-grapefruit and stony, savory nuances. The palate has plenty of flavor in the yellow-peach spectrum. Fleshy, fresh and juicy right the way through.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
These cooler-vintage 2017s alongside the riper 2019 vintage wines. They are very different in personality, and it allows for some comprehension of the style/vineyard within the glass. The 2017 Estate Chardonnay is a blend of six vineyards, which are now eight years from harvest. In the mouth, the cool vintage has held this wine in good stead. It is evolving and showing tertiary fruit characters, but that's all in sync with other aspects of the wine: phenolic structure, ripe acidity, gently toasty oak. The fruit here is evolving more slowly than the riper 2019 Estate Chardonnay.
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Wine Spectator
Mouthwatering lime, pear and green apple flavors are appealing for their focus and intensity. Mandarin orange notes and a dash of mango increase the fruit focus on the 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.
Grape-growers in the local subregions of Clevedon, Matakana and Waiheke Island, focusing on vineyard techniques to maximize quality, are producing very fine Bordeaux Blends from local grapes. Auckland is also an industrial area where winemakers can produce quality wines based on sourced grapes from neighboring regions.