• Oaked
• Peach
• Brioche
• Spice

"An enticing, nutty, toasty-fruit-laden full bouquet with scents of roasted stone fruits and burnt butter, brazil-nut butter and vanilla, yoghurt and smokey barrel qualities. Full-bodied with a flinty quality, a backbone of acidity enhancing the lemon and other citrus fruit attributes, flavours of nut and barrel spice then roasted stone fruits and a clay soil quality. There’s complexity and youthful energy at the core of this wine, plenty of texture and mouthfeel with a flinty youthful finish. A wine that is still developing which is fantastic, well made with best drinking from 2025 through 2030+" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, May 2023

"Combining power and grace, complexity and elegance, this magnificently composed Chardonnay shows golden peach, fig, nougat, vanilla and roasted cashew characters on the nose with a hint of brioche. The palate exhibits outstanding concentration and focus, together with excellent depth and persistency, wonderfully complemented by creamy mouthfeel and juicy acidity. Multi-layered, mouthfilling and splendidly attractive" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, May 2019

"Rich, creamy Chardonnay with peach, citrus, hazelnut, brioche and spicy oak flavours. Barrel fermentation and maturation on the lees has amplified flavour intensity, added extra complexity and given the wine a smoother, richer texture" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, May 2019

This flagship Chardonnay expresses a medley of peach and melon flavours, overlaid with toasty oak. A rich, ripe style with finely integrated oak and a taut but harmonious acidity on the finish.

Made from 100% Mendoza Chardonnay grapes from the famous Tietjen vineyard on the Golden Slopes in Gisborne. This site has a rich history in producing award-winning Chardonnays for over 20 years. This narrow 10km strip is made up of small parcels of elevated sloping land. Medium to heavy Kaiti clay base material is overlaid with 20-30cm of light black topsoil, with influences from the limestone foothills. These conditions allow vines to grow with a balance suited to super-premium wine making. Here we target low yielding vines, the grapes are leaf plucked by hand for ultimate sun exposure and the crop reduced to 6 tonnes per hectare to increase the intensity of the flavour in the wine.

In an exceptional vintage, where superior ripeness is achieved, we hand craft this limited release barrel fermented style of Gisborne Chardonnay. Harvested in the cool of the morning, the fruit for this wine achieved superb ripeness after another warm season in Gisborne. The grapes were gently pressed and slightly clarified prior to fermentation. The juice was then inoculated with the indigenous yeast from the vineyard using a technique called Pied du Cuvé. Here we pick a small parcel of grapes and crush prior to the full harvest and allow them to ferment on the skins. We then add these back into the juice to ferment the full parcel. This gives us a true expression and terroir of the vineyard and provides layers of flavour and aroma complexity, as well as wonderful palate texture. Fermentation in a mixture of American and Hungarian oak barriques ensures a perfect integration of oak character and full malolactic fermentation adds richness and length. The wine is sir lie for 10 months before careful fining and bottling.

This flagship Irwin Chardonnay is a tribute to the late Bill Irwin and his son Denis, the founders of Matawhero. Bill is considered the father of modern viticulture in New Zealand and imported new grape varieties including Mendoza Chardonnay into New Zealand in the late 1960s. He was corresponding with viticultural leaders in Europe, Australia and the United States and was responsible for the importation of virus-free root stock.

Food Pairing: Perfect with seafood, scallops and crayfish.