SAINT CLAIR OMAKA RESERVE CHARDONNAY 2023

Trophy for Champion Chardonnay – Marlborough Wine Show 2024
Gold Medal – Marlborough Wine Show 2024

There is nothing shy about the Omaka Reserve, Saint Clair's top Chardonnay. Selected from only the very best barrels, this is big and mouth-filling with plenty of weight on the palate. This has ripe stonefruit, smoky oak flavours in abundance. 

Unusually for a New Zealand Chardonnay, this is fermented in American Oak rather than French – this gives the wine more vanillin characters like many Californian Chardonnays. However, unlike the Californian Chardonnays, this also has a more complete savoury mineral character.

Winery notes (2023 Vintage)
"Powerful aromas of spice, cedar and resin with a hint of vanilla. Generous and rich with a luxurious mouthfeel. The palate has a complex array of flavours with savoury notes, preserved lemon and toasted oak on the finish.

The fruit was lightly whole bunch pressed and the juice fermented in American oak barrels, sixteen per cent of which were new, using selected yeast strains. The wine underwent malolactic fermentation, followed by nine months aging on yeast lees with regular stirring. Only the very best barrels were selected for the Omaka Reserve Chardonnay."

5 Stars & 96/100 Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, September 2024 (2023 Vintage)
"Gloriously styled and expressed, showing golden peach, mango, French vanilla, roasted hazelnut and sweet pastry characters on the nose. The concentrated palate exhibits outstanding weight and depth, wonderfully enhanced by creamy mouthfeel and beautifully pitched acidity, finishing long and delicious. It's multi-layered and immensely complex with layers of seductive flavours. At its best: now to 2031."

4 Stars Cuisine Chardonnay Tasting, September 2024 (2023 Vintage)
"A fruit-forward chardonnay with aromas of lemons, stone fruit, coconut and vanilla with just a hint of spice on the nose. The palate is mid weighted with good drinkability and an impressive length that is refreshing and moreish."

Reviews for the 2022 vintage below…

97/100 Judges' Comments, Decanter World Wine Awards 2024 (2022 Vintage)
"Brimming with fleshy white peach and sweet grapefruit with a spine-tingling crushed stone mineral frame which teases across the palate. Creamy and rounded with an appetising lemon curd acidity and a warming toasted bread finish."

Joelle Thomson, drinksbiz Magazine, April/May 2024 (2022 Vintage)
"This wine from Marlborough’s Omaka Valley expresses the structure and freshness that comes from the region’s Southern Valleys. Warm days and cool nights capture great structure, fresh acidity and ripe flavours, all of which are present and counted in this lovely wine."