Stella Bella Luminosa Chardonnay 2021
- 96
- $100
- Drink by: 2022-2037
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A single vineyard Chardonnay from the Boodjidup Valley at the southern end of the Margaret River region that offers an antidote to the super rich and ripe Margs’ Chardonnays of old. This is a ‘still waters’ kind of wine running deep in subtle layers of underlying complexity and nascent fruit power. Time in bottle will reveal more, a lot more. Immediately wears the Margaret River Gin Gin clone Chardonnay stamp of lifted florals and concentrated citrus plus summer stone fruits and skin. Oak is quietly humming in the background.
Gin Gin (also known as Mendoza) has long been the favoured Chardonnay clone in the region due to its particular delivery of big and small berries (called ‘hen and chicken’). The small berries bring incredible concentration of flavour and overall vinous power. It’s a stunning feature of the Luminosa Chardonnays, the ’21 included. Taut across the palate, an earlier-pick probably necessitated by vintage conditions, sees the ’21 coming in at 13% alcohol as opposed to 13.6% in ’20. This has resulted in a firmer acidic structure in ‘21 but fruit intensity remains a present, if subtle, feature. Give it time and watch it bloom.
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.
