L.A.S Vino Wildberry Springs Chardonnay 2024

Stuart McCloskey, tasted 9th October "The bouquet is super-powerful and packed with ginger spice, ginger biscuit, fresh pineapple, pear, lemon and lime zest, lemon barley water (you’ll see), grapefruit, anise and the unmissable sprinkling of sea salt. Nougat and warm, sweet pastry emerge with more time in the glass. Similarly, the palate is powerful, drives with authority, mouth filling, intense and so thrilling (no spitting whatsoever as this is rather addictive). Overall, this is one hell of an impactful wine. It lacks nothing and delivers everything you could ever wish for from a Margs Chardonnay. As with all wines from the L.A.S. Vino stable, purity underpins the wine. The bright flavours and chalky texture flow effortlessly – I thoroughly enjoy the pithy grapefruit. Outright delicious now, but this has all the credentials to evolve over 8-to-10 years. I believe the high-spot being in 6-8-years. Served using Zalto Burgundy stemware."

VINEYARD

Sitting in the heart of Willyabrup, growing on rich gravelly loam soils, this 30 year old vineyard is immaculate, with no vines out of place, its almost perfect. It took a few years of begging to be able to pick fruit from this vineyard. Planted by John Durack, who’s family were the first to bring cattle over the top end into the Kimberly. A single vineyard wine, this year we received fruit from a new part of the vineyard which had more clonal gin-gin giving a richness to the wine that we haven’t seen in previous vintages. 

WINEMAKING

The fruit was hand picked, chilled overnight and gently pressed as whole bunches with only the free run juice fermented. The wine was racked off sediment to ferment in quartz amphora of different size and shape along with barriques. These differences in the shape, size and porosity of vessel provide complexity in fermentation kinetics and flavour. A portion of the wine was fermented in oak (30% new) and matured in vessel for 11 months with no malolactic fermentation. The wine was not fined but went through a light filtration prior to bottling. 

TASTE

Purity is the word that I think every time I try this wine. Purity, tension and elegance. Pure flavours of Willyabrup chardonnay, peach lemon, lime, green apple, a touch of cream and a hint of flint. The wine will age gracefully for 10 years if cellared correctly.