Moorooduc Estate Chardonnay 2016
- Decanter
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Parker
Robert
Product Details
Your Rating
Somm Note
Winemaker Notes
A terrific match to roasted free range chicken with a celeriac mash.
Professional Ratings
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Decanter
Similar vinification to The Moorooduc McIntyre (spending 10 months in French oak, 25% new) and predominantly sourced from the McIntyre Vineyard (with Robinson Vineyard fruit), but this is more upfront and generous. Intense, with flavours of smoky, perfumed oak, ripe white peach, lemon and fresh fig alongside complexing earthy, salty, buttery Jersey Royals and savoury, textural lees. It has a steely undertow of grapefruity acidity that maintains focus and, after opening up, offers honeysuckle and mandarin flavours lending an exotic note. Drinking Window 2020 - 2023
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
A hint of struck match sparks the nose of Moorooduc's 2016 Chardonnay, illuminating notes of toasted brioche, white peach and caramelized pineapple. But for all those decadent-sounding adjectives, this medium-bodied wine is contained and precise, with taut acids and a chalky texture on the long finish.
Other Vintages
2018-
Enthusiast
Wine
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Enthusiast
Wine -
Suckling
James
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Spectator
Wine
Established in 1982 by Richard and Jill McIntyre, Moorooduc Estate is a small, family run wine business that has developed an enviable reputation for complex and food friendly wines.
Moorooduc Estate's philosophy in everything they do is to make the most of top quality ingredients. Intensive, hands-on care in the vineyard, with minimal use of chemicals, produces the best possible fruit for our wines. Wild yeast ferments and minimal intervention winemaking, with a nod to traditional Burgundian techniques, allow the wines to express their site specificity, or terroir. Similarly, they aim to source ingredients for the food they serve that are seasonal, local and organic.
All the wines are made on-site in the rammed earth winery. From a very modest 20 tonne winery set up in 1987, they now have a more sophisticated facility with a small but high-quality Bucher press and an excellent Vaslin – Bucher destemmer. Since 2006 they have had the facility to chill fruit in a refrigerated shipping container which has been particularly beneficial with the warmer climate and earlier vintages we have been experiencing over recent years. In the winery, the emphasis is on gentle winemaking methods with some quality control where they believe this is important.
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.
Extending into the sea from just south of the city of Melbourne to form Port Philip Bay in the southern state of Victoria, the Mornington Peninsula grape growing region naturally has a cool, maritime climate. A wide range of soils and topographic variations support a large diversity of wine styles within the small headland.