D’Arenberg Olive Grove Chardonnay 2025
- 92
- $19
- Drink by: 2026-2030
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When it comes to Chardonnays available for under twenty bucks a bottle, this one must surely sit among the very best. After fermentation, the wine spent seven months maturing in French oak. The fruit is sourced from both McLaren Vale and the Adelaide Hills.Deep straw in colour, this is soft, full of flavour and rather delicious. Perhaps a little simple, but terrific drinking and it certainly drinks well above its price. There are notes of stone fruits and citrus with just a flick of oak evident. Seamless in structure, enjoy this now, but it will still offer pleasure over the next two to four years. You really can’t ask much more from a wine for this sort of money.
Ken was born and bred in Brisbane, Queensland. He had a non-trendy, perfectly happy childhood, in a family convinced alcohol meant instant condemnation to Hades. But a break fishing on the Great Barrier Reef, and some good wine, started a serious obsession that eventually took over. It did not stop Ken being chastised later for drinking Pol champagne, disgusted he’d drink anything made by a Cambodian dictator. Now, Ken mostly writes on wine, champagne and spirits for various newspapers, magazines and books, but is perhaps best known for his work in The Courier Mail. He also has a little sideline writing on cigars, fishing, travel and food. When not writing, fly-fishing for trout in NZ or bonefish on the flats of Cuba, travelling or smoking cigars, he is no doubt following a variety of sporting teams – the occasionally glorious Queensland Reds rugby, the dysfunctional Washington Redskins, the dodgy Arsenal and especially revels in the world restored to its proper axis with the return of the Ashes to their rightful home.
