Smeaton Estate Stella Single Vineyard Chardonnay 202

  • 94
  • $58
  • Drink by: 2025-2031

Share

This vineyard has been around for 30 years and this is the first Chardonnay release. Not sure why they waited so long, but it is looking mighty fine. Follows the fairly standard approach of handpicking, whole bunch pressing and then fermentation and maturation in a mix of new and older French barriques. Cashew and lemon tart characters on the nose merge into the palate. It has a slightly savoury element with the primary fruit characters still evident. About half the wine went through malolactic fermentation which was probably a combination of managing the cooler year and introducing another level of palate complexity.

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
Pilot
Ray Jordan
Date
Variety: White Wine, Chardonnay
Categories: Drinks, Australian Wines