Vasse Felix Heytesbury Chardonnay 2019
- 98
- $92
- Drink by: 2021 - 2033
Share
Vasse Felix have retained the Heytesbury name for their best chardonnay, while dropping it for their top red in lieu of the Tom Cullity. Winemaker Virginia Willcock has elevated these Vasse Felix chardonnays to the top echelon within Margaret River – which means Australia. This wine shows the influence of the cool vintage which has contributed to a refined and so elegantly crafted chardonnay. It does have more new oak than the standard version, but the power and intensity of the fruit handles it easily so the balance is maintained without a hint of excessiveness. Only natural yeasts are used and it gets nine months in oak with some batonage giving a slightly charry character that augments the intense grapefruit and pear characters on the palate. Long and defined, the fruit seems to glow with luminosity making this one of the finest yet under this label.
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.
