Tasting Date: 15 November 2013

Distinctly bright and mineral with outstanding clarity. The core is soft, rounded and textural. A comforting mid palate is neatly balanced by an intense finale and forward drive. Showing youthful restraint with exuberance to come.

Drink / Hold

Tasting Date: May 2013

Brilliant lemon gold with a seamlessly integrated nose; floral with subtle hazelnut notes and white peach. Minerality predominates over delicate lemon zest and crisp acid. Very textural on the palate, full not fat. Long, fresh and clean on the finish with not a hint of oak. This wine is unfined and unfiltered, the first time we have achieved this with our Bannockburn Chardonnay.

Gourmet Traveller, Oct/Nov 2014

Each of Felton Road’s three vineyards provided grapes for this wine.  The grapes were whole-bunch pressed, fermented in French oak barrels using indigenous yeasts and aged for 12 months in oak.  Wonderfully pure, yet subtly flavoursome and powerful chardonnay with chalky mineral, nectarine, brioche and hazelnut characters making up the more dominant flavours.  It has the purity and power of Burgundy with strong Kiwi and Central Otago accents. 96***** 

eRobertParker.com, Lisa Perrotti-Brown, October 2013

Opening with a pretty nose of peach blossoms, spiced apple slices and honeysuckle with nuances of meal, lightly buttered toast and preserved ginger the 2012 Chardonnay is medium to full-bodied with a youthful palate already showing great poise with plenty of stone fruit, savory and toasty flavors enlivened by a refreshing acid line before finishing with satisfying persistence. Drink it now to 2018+. 92 points