A truly spectacular chardonnay

This is the finest wine I have tasted under this label, says Matthew Jukes. It is scintillatingly well made.

Matthew Jukes
By Matthew Jukes
published

832-Trinity-634

2015 Trinity Hill, Gimblett Gravels Chardonnay, Hawkes Bay, New Zealand (£22.99, Liberty Wines, 020-7720 5350; £19.99, or £17.99 each if you buy six or more bottles, NZHouseOfWine.co.uk).

There is a delicious game that we in the wine trade are invited to play when visiting cocky wineries. It's a game of blind tasting and the stakes are always high. When a winemaker, such as the great Warren Gibson of Trinity Hill, puts his chardonnay up against a host of massively respected and eye-wateringly expensive white Burgundies, you know he is feeling happy with his work.As you nose and taste through the glasses and try to decide which wine is which, your senses work overtime and you drill down into the core of each flavour, searching for ever more nuance.

I played this game on my last trip to New Zealand and Warren's spectacular chardonnay triumphed.This brand new release of it hits the shelves now. This is the finest wine I have tasted under this label. It is scintillatingly well made, with oak and fruit in sensational harmony. It is insanely well priced, too. I fell for it in an instant. I saw Warren the other day and told him my thoughts. He agreed that it is a work of art looks like we will all be playing the game again soon.

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Matthew Jukes is a winner of the International Wine & Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year (MatthewJukes.com).

Matthew Jukes
Matthew Jukes

Matthew Jukes has worked in the UK wine business for well over three decades and during this time has written 14 wine books.  

Matthew regularly lectures, judges, speaks at wine conferences and runs masterclass tastings for both corporate and private clients all over the world. Matthew is also the creator of his ground-breaking initiative, the One Day Wine School, an indulgent day of tasting and learning first performed in 2006.

He has been the MoneyWeek wine correspondent since 2006 and has written a weekly column for the Daily Mail’s Weekend Magazine since 1999. His four highly-acclaimed, annual wine reports – the Burgundy En Primeur Report, the Bordeaux En Primeur Report, the Piemonte Report and the 100 Best Australian Wines – are published on his website, www.matthewjukes.com.

Matthew is one of the world’s leading experts on Australian wine and, with Brisbane-based wine writer Tyson Stelzer, runs an annual competition in Australia to find ‘The Great Australian Red’.  He was made Honorary Australian of the Year in the UK at the 2012 Australia Day Foundation Gala dinner. 

Matthew is a winner of the International Wine and Spirit Competition's Communicator of the Year Trophy.  His thoughts, recommendations and tastings notes are followed very closely by the wine world at large.

 

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