2012 Greywacke Chardonnay
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Tasting notes
Fruit p rimarily sourced from the low-yielding Mendoza clone, the balance from clone 95. The majority of the fruit was sourced from the lower reaches of the Brancott Valley and Fairhall, grown in gravelly, clay-loam soils, the remainder coming from Rapaura, grown in young alluvial soils containing high proportions of New Zealand’s greywacke river stones. Whole-bunch pressed and racked to barrel (20% new). Occasional lees stirring and full malo. pH 3.35, TA 7 g/l. Creamy, spicy, clementine aroma, with a mealy quality and a lovely savoury character overall. Rich and spiced but still so fresh. Powerful, intense and delicious. Like the wild Sauvignon, has rich texture without being at all heavy. (JH)
Critic scores
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Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW, Wine Advocate
Julia Harding MW, jancisrobinson.com
More reviews and scores
The 2012 Chardonnay is made from all Mendoza and Clone 95 clones and undergoes full malolactic fermentation. On the nose it gives lovely white peach, apricot and warm apple notes with nuances of cashews, toast and ginger. The very elegant, medium-bodied palate is fine and fresh through the long, creamy finish. This s a more gentle and reticent expression - both mineral and fine - and should age well.
Pale, bright yellow. Wild, meaty aromas of white peach, lemon and musky fresh herbs suggest an Old World chardonnay. Then tactile and generous in the mouth, with soft citrus, fresh herb, mineral and smoke flavors conveying serious energy and a strong impression of dry extract. Lovely subtle, persistent finish shows excellent cut and finesse.
The 2012 Chardonnay is made from all Mendoza and Clone 95 clones and undergoes full malolactic fermentation. On the nose it gives lovely white peach, apricot and warm apple notes with nuances of cashews, toast and ginger. The very elegant, medium-bodied palate is fine and fresh through the long, creamy finish. This s a more gentle and reticent expression - both mineral and fine - and should age well.||I met-up with legendary Marlborough winemaker and very talented photographer Kevin Judd in Central Otago this trip. Along with the new releases, he presented me with a vertical tasting of The “Wild Sauvignon Blanc” to demonstrate how it ages. Kevin Judd (who, I should probably point out, was one of the founders and the former winemaker at Cloudy Bay), was emphatically not looking to reinvent Cloudy Bay's Te Koko with this wine. And although it too is a barrel fermented style, this is where the similarities end. Produced from a sub-set of the batches that go into his straight Sauvignon Blanc label, for this wine he is looking for a riper cross section of batches with slightly higher alcohol. So ten different batches usually compose the wine. The real difference between these two styles is in the fermentations. With the Wild, it is wild, i.e. all natural fermentation and malo-lactic. He begins with clear juice so as not to produce too much of that (currently trendy) sulfide character. Fermented in oak - 7% new, Mercury French oak, lightly toasted - the wine is unsulfured until it comes out of barrel. 2/3 -3/4 of the barrels go through malo-lactic. It is then transferred to tank and stirred on lees in the tank. In contrast to Te Koko, which is in some ways more about the winemaking, with this wine Judd told me he wanted to show more of the Sauvignon Blanc fruit, and and is ultimately looking to forge a fresher, more varietally expressive style. eRobertParker.com.December, 2014