Winemaker Notes
The palate is detailed and ethereal. Pear greets nectarine, white peach and lemon curd. Woven and harmonious, it unfolds to a graphite and mineral thread, with a touch of sherbet, aniseed and cardamom. Gentle textures open through the mid-palate with vibrant natural acidity, amidst a black tea, talc and chalk-like finish featuring characteristic length.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
It’s still a baby, but there is no question of what lies within. Tuberose, lemon leaf, green spice, preserved lemon, toasty oak, cracker and perfumed white peach. On the palate, flavour is concentrated and intense, and combined with the firm structure of this wine, powerful enough to hold up to the oak. There’s vibrant, lacy acidity, ripe and powerful Gingin fruit, yet in no way eding towards fleshy. It’s voluminous and complex, but laser-beam precision keeps things taut. The palate blooms with opulent florals, doughnut peach, nectarine skin, lemon blossom, crushed roast cashew, orange blossom and crushed citrus leaf. A silvery salinity on the finish tickles. A wine of polish, precision and immense power, yet all in balance. This is one for the distance.
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Australian Wine Companion
If you were sitting quietly in a corner, contemplating the vicissitudes of life, and a glass of this exceptional chardonnay came your way, well, all would be very well indeed. And you’d perk up. It’s a wine that tends to be scintillating in youth, driven by all manner of citrus flavours – lemon, pink grapefruit with a dash of lime but also a mille-feuille of leesy lusciousness, oak spices and a moreish savouriness. It seems powerful and explosive with its acidity, drive and energy yet manages to remain classy and complex.
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James Suckling
Another exceptional release for this famed Australian chardonnay. Highly strung and tightly wound with mineral-edged aromas of lemon peel, crushed stones and sea spray as well as grapefruit, struck match and white orchard fruit. The palate is still reserved and quiet—remarkable, considering the 11 months in barrel with biweekly lees-stirring. A wine that always needs time but consistently presents as flashy yet vertical. Excellent. Drink or hold but give it some air beforehand.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
The 2022 season was warm and low-yielding, particularly for Chardonnay, and many of the wines produced in the region this season can be typified by their nuttiness and a distinct chamomile tea/white flower character. Here, the 2022 Art Series Chardonnay is showing both of those characters, neatly wedged into the authoritative profile of Leeuwin Art Series Chardonnay. Today, for perhaps the first time ever in seeing these wines on release, I note that the oak is a key player in the drinking experience—as ever, seamlessly matched to the fruit and an important part of the wine's style and evident here today. There are toasted nuts, yellow fruits, exotic spices and an open fan of acidity/phenolics through the finish. This 2022 will prove to be a powerful and statuesque player in the wider footprint of Art Series Chardonnays. It's one to collect, but for drinking in the short/immediate term, decanting is recommended. Sealed under screw cap.
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Wine Spectator
A vibrant style, offering a mouth- watering and mouth filling mix of bright lemon, yuzu and neroli notes, with fresh lime and a touch of tangerine. Shows lemon blossom, toasted sesame seed and Himalayan salt hints, with plenty of precision and focus as well as power. All of this is on a light, juicy frame, keeping everything bright and focused.
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.
Home to some of Australia’s most elegant and long-lived red and white wines, Margaret River is situated in the farthest reaches of Western Australia. Relatively warm and dry, the region is cooled by breezes from the Indian Ocean. Margaret River takes some inspiration from Bordeaux, producing top-quality Cabernet Sauvignons and Bordeaux Blends with firm structure, mouthwatering acidity, balanced alcohol and notes of herbs and spice. For white wines, refreshing blends of Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon as well as complex, age-worthy Chardonnays are regional specialties.