Sailor Seeks Horse Chardonnay 2023

There’s a little more aromatic concentration this year methinks. Still resplendent in its ripe white peach and citrus fruits, flecked with spiced oatmeal, clotted cream, meadow wildflowers, grilled cashews, nougat, distant struck flint and nicely judged vanillin oak. Stony and nicely focused on the palate with a briny sapidity and impressive tension between fruit and line. It finishes savoury and very moreish and that is a big win. 95 points – Halliday Wine Companion

No Huldufolk this, which works for me as this is the finest chardonnay to date. 40 per cent new French oak, no malolactic as usual, the fruit soaking up what has to be very expensive wood. Super fragrant, with spring jasmine, pawpaw, fig, quince, white peach, preserved lime, spicy oak, burnt butter and citrus rind. I won’t say concentrated, but it’s certainly a ball of energy; rippling with flesh and pithy muscle and sprayed with a briny, salty, seaweed. Unique shape, as in everything comes from the core. Left in the glass for a good half hour with subtle reductive notes, passionfruit and Creme Brule. Very long in the mouth, all the elements harmonised the whole way through. Tasmanian Grand Cru. Norris at Waters Wine

In warmer regions you often get either breadth or precision but rarely both. We like to think our wines combine the two and never more so than in this Chardonnay. It has length, persistence and generosity combined with that saline character we see each year, all supported with some delicious new French oak. Gilli and Paul Lipscombe, Sailor Seeks Horse