"Made from hand-picked, whole-bunch pressed grapes that were fermented in barrel using endemic yeasts from vineyard and winery as well as cultured yeasts. Weighty wine with nectarine, oyster shell, mineral, bran biscuit and spicy oak flavours. A concentrated chardonnay in a tight and tangy style. Drink 2017 to 2022" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, November 2017

"A beautifully styled chardonnay, the inviting bouquet shows ripe peach, rockmelon, vanilla and hazelnut aromas with a touch of oatmeal complexity. It is wonderfully rounded and creamy on the palate, while remaining firmly structured by bright acidity. The wine offers excellent weight and texture with layers of complex flavours. This is a great Elston. At its best: 2019 to 2026" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Feb 2018

Resplendent white-gold, Elston Chardonnay ’16 shows immediate notes of lemon oil, white peach and concentrated, ripe nectarine. The aromas of citrus blossom and clover honey sparkle over a luxurious palate of grapefruit, toast and lemon nougat. Elston Chardonnay, Te Mata’s Queen, is fine, gorgeous and intense. Chardonnay royalty with focus, energy and oodles of its signature, moreish character. It is rich and complex with flavours of fresh pineapple, white peach and nougat.

Elston is named for Elston Hall in Nottinghamshire, the ancestral home of Charles Darwin’s family. Darwin’s ‘theory of natural selection’ forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory, the foundation of biology. The wyvern symbol of Elston Hall appears on the label. 

The superb quality of the 2016 vintage was immediately apparent in the fully ripe grapes that were hand-harvested from their separate, individual plots within Te Mata Estate’s vineyards between 17 and 26 March 2016. Each parcel was gently whole-cluster pressed, cold settled and racked to new and seasoned French oak barrels for fermentation. The resulting wines remained in contact with their yeast lees while undergoing malolactic fermentation. The finest lots were selected for further maturation, spending a total of 11 months in barrel.

Note about the seal: Elston ’16 is bottled with leading technology ‘DIAM’ corks. These are produced using a liquid form of carbon dioxide which eliminates any possibility of cork taint and, when the wine is well cellared, they provide consistent evolution for every bottle. Elston ’15 will continue to evolve in bottle for five years from harvest.