BLACK BARN BARREL FERMENTED CHARDONNAY 2023

Winery notes (2023 Vintage)
"Complex and very sophisticated bouquet with aromas of fresh apricot and red apple, peach and lees complexity. Complex and seamless, very youthful, primary and curious. A lovely example, well made and ready for drinking from now through 2029+."

Rated Excellent & 93/100 Cameron Douglas MS, June 2024 (2023 Vintage)
"There’s no mistaking the impact and power of this wine with its full-bodied palate impact, flavours of stone fruits and grapefruit, barrel and lees flavours and spice. Peach and apple, grapefruit and new wood flavours. Fine wood and fruit tannins, medium+ acid line and satin-cream finish deliver a wine of substance and texture. Best drinking from 2024 through 2030."

Reviews for previous vintages below…

5 Stars & 95/100 Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, October 2021 (2020 Vintage)
"It's gorgeously styled and expressed with apricot, mango, vanillin oak and roasted hazelnut aromas on the nose with a hint of oatmeal complexity. The concentrated palate displays outstanding weight and focus, wonderfully complemented by creamy texture and beautifully pitched acidity, making it harmonious and persistent. At its best: now to 2030."

4 ½ Stars Michael Cooper (2020 Vintage)
"The 2020 vintage is a refined, subtle wine, hand-picked and fermented in French oak casks (15 per cent new). Full-bodied, it has very good intensity of youthful, peachy, citrusy flavours, mealy notes adding complexity, finely integrated oak and fresh acidity. Best drinking 2024+."

5 Stars Yvonne Lorkin, May 2020 (2019 Vintage)
"If you were wondering what the 2019 vintage was like for the great players in Hawke’s Bay chardonnay – then let it be known that it was, if this wine is any indicator, rather great.  This is a wine that I look forward to each year with the impatience of an over-stimulated toddler in a supermarket checkout at 5pm and they’re sitting in the trolley right next to the Perky Nana’s and Chupa Chups.  You understand the desire right? With lifted aromas of roast nectarine, grilled grapefruit and toasted, buttery crumpets and powerful flavours of ripe stonefruit, smoky spiced notes and lashings of caramelised oak – it’s a saucy, seriously juicy style that’s drinking beautifully now, but will reward patient cellaring for the next 5-6 years."

5 Stars & Number 2 Cuisine Chardonnay Tasting, October 2020 (2019 Vintage)
"An exquisite example of how to frame struck match, flint notes so they enhance rather than overwhelm the wine. Beautiful, ripe white stonefruit and wet-stone aromas on the nose with lovely spicy and juicy characters create a balance with a wonderfully lengthy finish."