WARREN BARTON
OPINION:
If my memory serves me rightly Auckland’s Royal Easter Show is a second of a vital booze competitions in a past few months to name a chardonnay as a champion booze of show.
Back in Nov during a Air New Zealand Wine Awards Villa Maria’s 2010 Single Vineyard Keltern Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay got a nod.
Last weekend, when a Royal Easter Show formula were announced, it was a lesser-known Brightwater Vineyards 2009 Lord Rutherford Barrique Chardonnay that took a honours.
They are formula that contend as most about a peculiarity of chardonnay in propinquity to other wines that we furnish as they do about a ambience and a visualisation of those who evade chardonnay in foster of wines that are seen as some-more select and therefore some-more fresh than a king of whites.
And, in fairness, many are or positively have been.
The problem has been twofold: The presentation of a operation of new, industriously fruity white alternatives, sauvignon blanc among them, and a inclination of winemakers to facade these characters in chardonnay by fiddling in a routine and by regulating too most oak.
But now they are starting to get it right.
As Kate Radburnd, presiding decider during a Easter Show pronounced later: “New Zealand winemakers are apropos some-more polished in their doing of a accumulation with larger refinement in a wines and patience in ash influence.
“There is a improved farrago of styles, from fruit-driven wines by to some-more formidable barrel-fermented styles.”
Which means, in ubiquitous terms, reduction butter, toffee, and toast, and some-more fruit, yet we can design a stately though some-more delicately offset mixed of these characters in a really best examples of New Zealand chardonnay.
And if anyone knows about chardonnays it is Ms Radburnd of CJ Pask, in Hawke’s Bay where she has been producing them given her early days with Vidals, behind in a 1980s.
It was no fluke afterwards that Gary Neale, co-owner of Brightwater Vineyards, in Nelson, pronounced when he perceived a prize for a award-winning wine: “With chardonnay it’s not only about removing it right in a vineyard. It’s also about creation a right decisions by each aspect of a winemaking process.”
The male obliged for that was Tony Southgate who, fittingly, won a winemaker of uncover award.
His elegant, full-bodied, $30 booze with a well-defined fruit flavours delicately offset with hints of toast and toffee was one of 16 chardonnays to be awarded bullion medals.
Of a others, 4 were won by Villa Maria, dual with wines from Hawke’s Bay, a others from Gisborne and Auckland.
Two Central Otago wineries were also mixed winners in a uncover – Two Degrees won bullion with a 2009 and 2010 pinot noirs and a 2009 was champion pinot noir; Wooing Tree won bullion with a 2010 pinot and a 2010 Beetle Juice pinot noir.
The uncover was not but a surprises, either.
For a initial time in a 59 years, a slew of bubblies won bullion (Daniel Le Brun Vintage 2001, Deutz 2008 Marlborough Cuvee Blanc de Blancs, Hunter’s 2008 Marlborough MiruMiru Reserve 2008, Lindauer Classic Brut, Lindauer Special Reserve Blanc de Blanc, No 1 Family Estate Cuvee Number 8) and a Lindauer Classic Brut, one of a cheapest wines in a uncover ($10-$16), was a champion stimulating wine.
But removing behind to this chardonnay.
Here are some of a other gold-medal winners:
Black Barn 2010 Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay ($24-$30)
A full-bodied tropical-citrus flavoured wine, with an appealing sharp ash impression that could already be formidable to find on wineshop shelves.
Mission 2009 Jewelstone Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay (about $34)
A grand Hawke’s Bay chardonnay with a extraction to match. Rich and eccentric with silken, tawny texture.
Giesen 2010 The Brothers Marlborough Chardonnay (about $23)
A rich, good value chardonnay with palatable mill and citrus fruit flavours, and a spirit of butterscotch.
– © Fairfax NZ News
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