Marchand & Burch Mount Barrow Chardonnay 2024
- 96
- $100
- Drink by: 2026-2036
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An early and very quick vintage in Mount Barker in 2024 has produced a beautiful example of this regional Chardonnay. The fruit is whole-bunch pressed and, after minimal settling, fermented in French oak, of which 40 percent was new. It’s a mix of barriques, hogsheads and puncheons with regular lees stirring, the parcels kept separate on lees for about 10 months, with some undergoing malolactic fermentation. There’s plenty in here. The aromas are a powerful mix of stone fruit with a little cashew, vanillin, and lemon curd. The palate is rich but with a fine tightening acidity, delivering minerality and a slightly savoury note to finish, providing precision and poise. This really is a lovely example of Mount Barker Chardonnay.
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.
