Howard Park Margaret River Chardonnay 2025
- 95
- $72
- Drink by: 2026-2036
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The fruit here comes from the Allingham Vineyard in Margaret River, specifically the Karridale sub-region which is located to the south. 2025 was a more typical vintage for the region after the hot and dry 2024. The fruit was whole bunch pressed and the team retained solids in order to compliment the texture and enhance the complexity. Fermentation was with native yeasts in larger format Burgundian oak. Lemon straw with the palest flecks of lime throughout, this is still youthful, but it is immediately obvious that this is a classy Chardonnay. There are notes of spicy, nutmeggy, cashewy oak integration to the fore, which is surely proceeding as the winemakers intended. The wine is well balanced with great intensity and serious length. There is good focus and a fine line of acidity running through, alongside the supple texture. Wonderful drinking now but surely better even better in twelve months, after which drink it for the following decade.
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.
