Alchemy Chardonnay 2019, Hawkes Bay

Alchemy Chardonnay.png

Complex, ripe and fruity bouquet with aromas equally divided between yellow stone fruits and French oak toasty barrel spices, raw cashew nut and a fine gun-flint and mineral layers. Delicious on the palate with a full-bodied power, youthful tension, fine tannins, plenty of acidity and core of ripe yellow fleshed fruits. Smoky, toasty barrel spices follow leaving a nutty oily richness and residue adding to a lengthy finish. Well made with a choice of immediate drinkability or cellar time with best drinking from early 2022 through 2026.

94 Points

Excellent

RRP from $28.50

A single vineyard wine

  • Made from Chardonnay clones 15, 95 & ENTAV-548 (roughly 1/3 of each clone)

  • Selectively picked & then immediately pressed on 31 March 2019

  • 100% barrel fermented (all in François Frères barrels) – with close to 45% new oak in the final blend

  • The juice was predominantly inoculated – with approx. a 16% wild ferment component in the final blend

  • Approx. 90% MLF

  • The final wine was blended in February 2020 and bottled in November 2020

  • Final wine analysis: pH 3.44 & TA 5.2

ChardonnayCameron Douglas94 Points, Excellent, Hawkes Bay, Alchemy