SOUMAH Hexham Vineyard Chardonnay 2024
- 95
- $52
- Drink by: 2025-2032
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Soumah offers a tale of two Yarra Valley Chardonnays from the cooler 2024 vintage. Each brings a distinct personality to the glass. Hexham is in Gruyere, on the north face of the Warramate Hills, and planted to a mix of the Mendoza (GinGin) and Burgundy clones. The ’24 was wild fermented in French oak (18% new) and matured on lees for eight months. A sunny and bright fragrance in notes of sea spray with citrus, ripe peach, nectarine, quince paste, baked bread and biscuit, vanillin spices. Sets in deep on the palate, concentrated and complex, offering weight and texture. Ferment-derived characters meld with sun ripened fruits and vanillin oak enlivened by a ginger spiciness, especially on the finish. Luxuriant and full flavoured with well-measured acidity.
Jeni Port is one of Australia’s top wine communicators. Based in Melbourne, Jeni created the first wine column in the (then) Sun News-Pictorial before moving over to The Age and becoming that paper’s longest-serving wine writer. Over the years she has written for most Australian wine magazines and these days calls WinePilot home. She is also a Tasting Panel member on the Halliday Wine Companion. She was named Wine Communicator of the Year and Legend of the Melbourne Food and Wine Festival in 2014 and in 2018 Legend of the Vine. She is a founding board member of Australian Women In Wine and is the co-deputy chair of Australia’s Wine List of the Year Awards and China’s Wine List of the Year Awards.
