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2013 Chardonnay

A pure, elegant and vibrant style of Chardonnay, embracing the region's powerful fruit with complexity and restraint to express the environment, with the hallmarks of Vasse Felix's premier vineyards.

 

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Tasting Notes
COLOUR Pale straw with a green tinge. NOSE Elegant, fine and complex perfume with vibrant fruit fragrances of pineapple, white peach and delicate fresh ginger and wild mushroom nuances beneath. Yeast and fine oak contribute exciting layers of smoked charcuterie, spicy clove and stone flint. PALATE The palate is bright, fresh and luscious with white peach and mushroom notes and a fine-tuned structure integrating the wine's mouth-watering acidity, fruit and oak. Its seamless, suspended palate finishes with a delicate citrus flower note.
Winemaker Notes
WINEMAKER'S NOTES A substantial viticulture program commenced at Vasse Felix in 2006, with the vision to enhance the resources of ultra-premium Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay grown within the Estate. The original Wilyabrup Vineyard was carefully expanded and a specialty vineyard was acquired in Karridale. These are known as the Estate's Premier Vineyards. In 2013 the combination of vine age, yields and season enabled Vasse Felix to realise a significant outcome of this program and make the first vintage of this much-anticipated Chardonnay to sit alongside the Estate's historic Cabernet Sauvignon. The fruit was hand-harvested, chilled, gently whole-bunch pressed and transferred to French oak barriques as unclarified juice for fermentation with only natural yeasts from the vineyard. Each parcel was left on lees in barrel for 9 months of maturation with battonage.
Varietals:
Production Notes
100% Chardonnay
Alcohol:
Alcohol %
13
Cellaring Potential:
Aging
Up to 7 years
Harvested:
Harvest Date
February 2013
Oak:
Fermentation
100% French oak (45% new, 55% 1 - 2 year old), 9 months
TA:
Acid
6.7 g/L
pH:
pH
3.1
Residual Sugar:
Residual Sugar
1.24 g/L
Bottled:
Bottling Date
February 2014
Vintage Notes
2013

VINTAGE DESCRIPTION

Moderate spring temperatures accompanied by low solar radiation and cool soil conditions contributed to slower vine growth and increased disease pressure. Thankfully, a consistent warm / dry summer ensured clean canopies and a timely start to the white harvest. Weather remained warm, without extremes. White varieties have lovely acidity and elegant, ripe fruit.

2013 Chardonnay
Add To Cart
$39.00
/ Bottle
Out of stock
Reviews

  • 17/20

    www.jancisrobinson.com

    Parcel selection. 9 months in barrel. Richly oaky struck-match aroma - both intense and inviting. Rich and creamy and very satisfying. Very fresh (pH 3.1) even with all that drive and depth, as well as plenty of citrus and melon fruit. Dry yet mouthfilling.

  • 96 points

    Halliday Wine Companion - James Halliday

    Estate-grown, handpicked, whole bunch pressed, wild yeast fermented cloudy juice; 9 months in French oak (55% new). This is an altogether different idiom to its sister Chardonnays, its purity and intensity cutting through the palate like a surgeons scalpel, the length and aftertaste prodigious.

  • 92 points

    Vinous

    Pale gold. A highly expressive bouquet evokes fresh orange, pear, fig, white flowers and smoky lees, with a mineral nuance adding urgency. On the palate, potent orchard fruit and citrus zest flavors pick up a deeper smoky element with aeration. Nicely combines power and finesse and closes very long and taut, with lingering mineral and honeysuckle qualities.

  • 92++ points

    Indaily-Philip White

    "This new inclusion in the range - everybody who's anybody must have at least three Chardonnays in their arsenal these days - is made after what the blurb calls the modern Margaret River style. So what does this mean? I think it's a bit like Penfolds Reserve Bin A Adelaide Hills Chardonnay in spirit: toward medium-bodied Burgundy in style and weight, with finesse rather than force. It smells of the coffee rock of the region, rain-wet. It has that flinty/carbide/cordite/gunpowder edge that many call 'minerality' or sometimes reduced - both terms which confuse me. Its oak is gingery and prickly, its acid like lemon pith. It looks a little brash and awkward in this its juvenile stage: if you cant wait a few years, I'd be decanting it. It has the sharps that could handle mild pork dishes, like well-roast belly cuts, a la The Elbow Room in McLaren Vale."