Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2023

This is a case of the planets aligning with one of the great names in Australian Chardonnay from what I think is the finest vintage in the history of West Australian modern winemaking. This is quintessential Leeuwin, controlled power, but with the subtle finesse and delicacy that is the signature of this great vintage. The nose is a wonderful mix of quince paste, cut lime, spice, grapefruit, and a subtle dusting of powdery talc. The palate captures the vintage so well. The flavour profile gradually builds and accelerates with tremendous drive through to a powerfully long finish, which is an essential part of the Leeuwin DNA. And yet all of this is done with such beautiful restraint and a controlled structure. It’s such a young wine at the minute, but you know that deep within there’s real power and latent energy that we’ll see it develop so typically into a great mature Chardonnay with extended cellaring. Up there with the finest releases.

Ray Jordan

Wine critic, author and journalist at Winepilot

Ray Jordan has been writing about wine for more than 40 years. His first articles were published in the early issues of national wine magazine Winestate in the late 1970s when he worked in Sydney as a newspaper correspondent. From 1989 Ray wrote more than 3000 columns as a regular newspaper wine columnist. He currently writes a regular column for the special business publication Business News and is one of the main contributors to national wine platform Wine Pilot. In 2017 Ray co-authored The Way it Was – A History of The Early Days of the Margaret River Wine Industry and previously wrote Wine in the Blood: Australia’s Family Wine Estates, published in Mandarin and English. In 2011 Ray was awarded WA Wine Press Club Jack Mann Memorial Medal for his contribution to the WA wine industry. His love of wine is as strong as his love of the blues and tasting the thousands of wines that cross his bench each year allows him to indulge in both.

Wine writing