Winemaker Notes
This wine has fragrant lemon/lime blossom aromas on the nose that typify the lovely perfume we always get from Hunting Hill. The 2015 vintage was affected by a spring frost and the subsequent yields were lower than usual. The summer was terrific and the grapes were beautifully clean, ripe and intensely flavored. This has created a wine of intense concentration and complexity that will be very long lived.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Very citrus-focused nose with overtly minerally crushed stony notes. Some sweet fermentation-derived leesy florals, too. An extremely distinctive wine in the set of single site Kumeu chardonnays. The palate continues the flinty, mineral theme, with chiselled shape and pithy grapefruit bitterness that really smacks the finish into place.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2015 Hunting Hill Chardonnay displays a youthful restraint, yet nonetheless delivers an exciting array of stone fruit, pink grapefruit, ginger and marzipan notes with subtle hints of orange blossoms, crushed stones and lightly buttered toast. Medium bodied and tightly woven, is has a lively backbone supportting the generous flavor layers, finishing with great length and depth. As usual - just gorgeous!
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Wine Enthusiast
Plump and succulent, the 2015 Hunting Hill displays attractive notes of hickory smoke and white peach, underscored by the suggestion of citrus custard. Like all of the 2015 Chardonnays from Kumeu River, it shows great length and intensity.
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Wine Spectator
Supple and aromatic, offering a lovely mix of lemon blossom and butterscotch flavors on a creamy, juicy body. Gains momentum on the long, expressive finish. Drink now through 2022.
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.