• Unoaked
• Nashi pear
• White peach
• Textural

"This is gorgeously styled and elegantly expressed on the nose showing ripe stone fruit, lemon zest and oatmeal characters with a whiff of gun smoke. The concentrated palate is finely textured and focused, offering excellent weight and textured mouthfeel, leading to a lengthy structured finish. At its best: now to 2028" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Feb 2022

White flesh peaches and sweet nashi pears with stacks of minerality on the nose. Textural in the mouth with a long, precise acid drive carrying the white flesh peach and white fresh flower flavours way back through the palate. A real testament to a great bit of dirt. Uncensored indeed!

Their Mangatahi Vineyard is planted on an ancient river terrace that was formed by the Ngaruroro River which now flows around 60 meters below the vineyard. The old terraces that remain are made up of greywacke (a compressed sandstone) boulders and gravels from the ranges, and a topsoil borne of windblown loess, volcanic ash and humus created by ancient forests and vegetation.

Falling in the middle of a nation-wide lockdown, the 2020 harvest in Aotearoa won’t be forgotten in a hurry. After a bit of a head scratch and some mild-mannered mutterings, they laced up and got back into it. More mineral and nougat than fruity, with no oak involved. Stripped bare and left to do its own thing without the norms of the wine world dictating its direction and what it looks, smells and tastes like. It’s a pure, uncensored expression of a Hawke’s Bay Chardonnay. And we bl**dy love it.

Made in a classic un-oaked style, the fruit was hand picked and whole bunch pressed to stainless steel tanks. Fermented cold to retain aromatics, unlike your classic warm chardonnay ferment, we really allowed the ‘true’ chardonnay character to shine through. Stirred on its gross lees for 8 months before being prepared for bottling without fining.