Mount Eyre Vineyards Three Ponds Hunter Valley Chardonnay 2021

Delivers Hunter Chardonnay’s signature sunny disposition that it is both generous, free flowing and surprisingly intense. Honeysuckle scents rise, to be joined by aromas of baked spice apple, lemon butter, peach and gentle tropicals. Oak plays a role here, it can’t be denied, with fermentation and maturation in French oak. It brings a lovely cohesion to the overall wine and contributes to texture and warmth of nougat flavour, and falls well within smart winemaking limits, something that adds rather than subtracts. Acidity is keen but, once again is managed well, bringing a clean, tight finish and drawing together the wine’s generosity of fruit into something that brings good length and a clean finish. A real exercise in smart wine growing and making in a year that marked a transition from drought to wet with plenty of January rains and with it, disease pressures. Well done.