Heirloom Vineyards Chardonnay 2023 (12 x 750mL) SA

Winery Tasting Notes

White-pale-gold; bright, and as if luminescent. Nectarine flesh, white peachskin, straw cut but yesterday. Ripe green apples, lemon zest and a tiny amount of pith. Mandarin freshly - and carefully - peeled, yet the segments unbroken. Bare hints of chilled fruit salad and apricots in the fruit bowl float by before the bouquet’s secondary elements waft in: some almond and some lanolin, some butter and some vanilla - all so subtle they could be easily missed by a connoisseur in an unnecessary hurry. A generous yet well-behaved palate of stone fruits checked and massaged into balance by a citric acidity. There is a taut tension here, which makes the structure of the wine long. Minerality sails effortlessly in at the back of the palate, with pings of bath salts and then more citrus and then a mineral water texture and quality. Great depth of fruit, but great structure to match. The flavour is as if stone fruits and a few tropical fruits are - off stage - yodelling in the background.