AWATERE RIVER RESERVE CHARDONNAY 2025

We came across this wine recently and it impressed us. Awatere River Wines was created by Louis Vavasour, whose family pioneered grape growing in the Awatere Valley and is now part of the Booster Wine Group.

From an excellent vintage with just enough age to soften the edges, this is excellent drinking at present. It was given the full treatment – gentle press, fermented and aged in quality oak. There is a lot to like.

Winery notes (2025 Vintage)
"Cashew, rock melon, satsuma and toasty oak flavours. Balanced acidity with a lingering finish. This wine has a silky texture that glides across the palate. There is concentration and complexity in this wine that will reward cellaring."

5 Stars & 94/100 Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, January 2026 (2025 Vintage)
"It's beautifully expressed on the nose, showing golden peach, mango, citrus peel, hazelnut, and vanilla notes, followed by a richly textured palate that's succulent and creamy. Wonderfully composed and expressed with a lingering, delectable finish. At its best: now to 2030."

Rated Excellent & 93/100 Cameron Douglas MS, January 2026 (2025 Vintage)
"A compelling bouquet filled with scents of ripe stone and some tropical fruits, fig, peach, apple and sweet grapefruit. Lees and barrel or wood scents frame the bouquet with light cashew nut and creamy vanilla wood suggestion. A light and lingering sea-spray salty quality adds complexity. Dry and youthfully taut, plenty of acidity with gentle gun-flint positive reduction seam and saline note adds to the complexity. Love it! Flavours of stone and tree fruits, only a whisper of tropical remains, then the use of some wood and lees define the finish. Excellent and well made with the best drinking late 2026- through 2030+."