Vasse Felix, Margaret River, Australien
The 2023 Heytesbury Chardonnay reveals all the poise and balance we expect from the season. It is awesome. This feels totally weighted on the back palate. The fruit intensity, coupled with powerful acidity and phenolic presence, fully penetrates beyond mere "flavor experience" and dives deep into the senses; the only option left is to ride that wave until it slowly fades. It's a persistent, sophisticated wine of latent power and patience. While this is released two years from harvest, it doesn't start to show its complex potential until around five years from harvest and far beyond that. It's slow to emerge and slow to age. - Erin Larkin
Fleshy, ripe stone fruit with nice flinty line. Creamy lemon shortbread with pillowy plumpness. An illusion of an easy-drinking, salted butter Chardonnay. Beneath that breezy exterior this has layer upon layer of complexity, and the oak is seamlessly integrated. Delightful sweetness of fruit at the core, grilled white peach with umami edges of toast and vanilla creaminess. Classic, comforting Chardonnay. Long waves of flavour with volume and delicacy, and a wild oceanic undercurrent. - Cassandra Charlick
An intensely complex and inviting nose with aromas of lemon curd, grapefruit rind, orange blossoms and gunsmoke. The medium-bodied palate has a textural mouthfeel and vivid acidity, showing notes of lime zest, mandarin pith, fresh pineapple and cookies. Multidimensional and giving with an underlying tension. Exceptional.
The 2023 Chardonnay Heytesbury is powerful yet refined delivering robust layers of preserved lemon and crushed nuts with hints of seabreeze and vanilla-bean oak. The 2023 is particularly approachable, with vibrant pear and ginger flavours to start before nougat and gunflint tones build on the finish. Tangy acidity builds through the close. This is an atypical vintage to enjoy over the medium term - Angus Hughson
The 2022 Heytesbury Chardonnay is lighter, fresher and finer than I can ever remember the Heytesbury tasting on release. It stylistically made a name for itself in the mid 2000s for the high-solid ferments, flinty reduction and spice aplenty. These days, I feel the style has swung gently back toward the middle, presenting us with a wine that is infinitely composed, powerful, restrained and yet kaleidoscopic in its fruit profile. I am not a fan of bombastic "best ever" statements, but this may go down as one of the greatest Heytesburys I have had the pleasure of tasting on release, and that is a statement that pays respect to the 2010 and 2013 vintages. - Erin Larkin
Sleek, taut and bursting with energy and succulence, this is excellent Chardonnay. A real thoroughbred, standing head and shoulders above all else in the tasting. A Jura-like washed rind note melds with curry leaf, quince and orchard fruits. Stony phenolics are bound to an intense saline lick to finish. Chiselled, vibrant and poised. So beautiful to drink. Reminiscent of something from the Jura, married to the ebullient fruit of Australia. Scintillating stuff that will age so very well. - Ned Goodwin MW
A complete package, the 2022 Chardonnay Heytesbury differs markedly from the Estate release from the same vintage with a tighter more composed shape and layered nuances. Crushed nuts, pear and flowerpress aromas are seamlessly intertwined with fine grained oak and smoky gunflint. An excellent upfront generosity of flavor takes a more savory refined line, punctuated by tangy acidity. Length is exceptional and this will build further in time. - Angus Hughson
This vintage is challenging, manifested here as a bony framework with a phenolic edginess. Apricots, truffles, ginger and glazed quince. The acidity, despite the medium body, is all knees and elbows. The finish is not as smooth as it could be. And yet I feel that time will work wonders as things settle down. Just believe. Drinkable now, but best from 2027. - Ned Goodwin MW
The 2021 Heytesbury Chardonnay is as Heytesbury usually is—complex, firmly textured, coastal and briny, with layers of flesh and spice folded in on the palate. The wine ages tremendously, and the release cycle really does it no favors, as the wine seems to come into its own several years after release. It really is a shame about commercial reality! You get salted white peach, brine, saltbush, green apple skins, tea leaves, graphite/pencil box, tobacco leaf and cilantro. It's a sensational wine, and it will be even better in time. It was fermented wild, matured for nine months in French oak barriques (56% new, the balance one to three years old) and settled for six months in tank thereafter. Super wine. Piercing. - Erin Larkin
Deeply complex and so richly fruited, this is all wrapped in very tautly in a flavor-soaked and seamless chardonnay. Aromas of wet stones, yellow grapefruit, flint, green lemons, fresh oak and white peaches are all tightly arrayed. The palate has mouthwatering punch and crispness. Very assertive and driving with a sleek overall feel, but packed with powerful, pristine white-peach, lemon, apricot and green-mango flavors. So long. This is a modern benchmark.
One of the most highly regarded Chardonnays in Australia, the 2018 Heytesbury shines. The reductive, flinty style typical to this wine is still there but is more reigned in these days: roasted hazelnuts layered with delicate citrus and stone fruit. The palate is beautifully complex and highly textural, nutty, mineral nuances flowing through to a lengthy finish. Elegant yet powerful, drinking gorgeously now but with the ability to age for several decades.”
The medium to full-bodied 2018 Heytesbury Chardonnay is rich and dense, intensely concentrated and packed with intricate dried-spice nuances. Notes of crushed stone set the stage, while melon and white peach notes constitute the fruity core, developing taut citrus nuances on the long, refreshing finish. - Joe Czerwinski
This is savoury with bags of personality. Beautiful floral, flinty, smoky and lemony aromatics with a hint of spice. Delightful textural quality with toasty, savoury and spicy nuances with flinty acidity drawing out the long, chalky finish.
Green-tinged yellow. Honeydew melon, nectarine and pear on the highly perfumed, mineral-accented nose. Shows excellent clarity and picks up floral and citrus zest nuances as the wine opens up. Juicy and energetic on the palate, offering an array of concentrated yet nervy orchard and pit fruit flavors and suggestions of gingery spices and toasted grain. Shows superb energy and cut on the mineral-driven finish, which features a sexy floral quality and an exotic touch of iodine. - Josh Raynolds
An extraordinary chardonnay that turns up the complexity and excitement factor to the limit. Smells of flinty lemons and grapefruit, hints of peaches and smart oak influence that adds spicy/nutty elements and an oyster-shell-like edge. The palate shape and texture are flawless; it completely fills the mouth with pithy lemon, grapefruit and nectarine flavors. The acidity is pitch-perfect, and the length is superb.
A very complex flinty and hazelnut style that has a strong play of fine French oak on the nose. Plenty of layers to the aromas here from white peaches and nectarine fruits to grapefruit and lemons. Immense grapefruit and citrus depth on the palate with warm oak spices and well-layered savory threads. Long and effortless power
Classic and delicious full-solids, ambient-yeast ferment here: smokily reductive but not overly so. Rich and creamy in texture with fine cool-climate fruit. Well balanced and great length. Lovely in this characterful but refined 'solids' style (ie without clarification of the juice before fermentation). Good Value. - Julia Harding
The 2014 Chardonnay Heytesbury explodes on the nose with ripe apricot, pineapple and honeydew notes plus suggestions of cashews, cedar, marmite and struck match. Medium-bodied and wonderfully elegant for this intensity of flvors, it has lively backbone and creamy texture, with a finish that goes on and on. - Lisa Perotti-Brown
