La Kooki Margaret River Boya Chardonnay 2020

The story behind this wine is nearly as exciting as the wine’s taste. In 2019 the winemakers visited France and got talking to a winemaker about the technique of using stones to top up barrels in the Jura. You read that correctly, stones! The wheels turned . . . what if they used this technique with Chardonnay and rolled the barrels using stones to stir the yeast lees through the wine? Next, the idea of a stone name and motif appeared in their fertile brains, and they reached out to the local Wadandi people, the traditional custodians of Margaret River, for permission to use the term, boya, which means stones in their Noongar language. Permission was kindly given, and Boya Chardonnay was born.

There is a lot of winemaking skill evident in this wine, including the rolling of barrels to stir lees, which leads to a rare complexity. Preserved lemon, white peach, nectarine, citrus and grilled nuts rise from the glass. It’s like the wine was born in the traditional citrus/stone fruit mould and then the mould has broken, such is the role of leesy phenolics which coats the wine in a warm creaminess bringing forth baked bread, vanilla and almond characters with it. Stunning.