2017 Hamilton Russell Vineyards chardonnay: delicate and impossibly elegant

published 6 April 2018

2017 Hamilton Russell Vineyards, Chardonnay, Hemel-en-Aarde, South Africa £23.95, Hennings Wine, 01798-872485, HenningsWine.co.uk; £24.50, Hailsham Cellars, 01323-441941, HailshamCellars.com

The entire portfolio of 2017 vintage Hamilton Russell wines is amazing. My featured chardonnay and the estate pinot noir shimmer with vibrancy and energy. The 2017 Ashbourne sauvignon blanc/chardonnay is a tangy, saline-tinged, summery glugger, and even the plummy, grippy, spicy 2017 Southern Right Pinotage and its raspy, nettle-soaked sauvignon sibling look fit and tidy.

The flagship is a triumph

But the star is the flagship chardonnay and, at only 13.16% alcohol, it is a triumph. Grown in one of the most southerly wine estates in South Africa, just behind the old fishing village of Hermanus, southeast of Cape Town, the vineyards, which overlook the ocean, are blessed with a favourable maritime climate. Ninety per cent of this wine has been barrel fermented and aged for nine months in French oak barriques of varying ages and a variety of toast levels. The remaining 10% is aged in large foudre, stainless steel and ceramic eggs.

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This complex cocktail of maturation vessels and accompanying flavour influences layers complexity into this mono-varietal wine. The results are delicate and impossibly elegant. It is pure, pale, innocent and yet firmly structured on the palate and incredibly long. It has every element of chardonnay that I admire and it does it with Zen-like calm. I think that you will like this wine very much indeed.

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

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.