99-plus/100 - Ray Jordan | 98 Points - Ken Gargett
Since its first commercial vintage back in 1979, Leeuwin Art Series Chardonnay has taken all before it and is now recognised as a benchmark Chardonnay on the international stage. The newly released 2018 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay is again Margaret River Chardonnay at its very best and our limited stocks are sure to be snapped up quickly.
As always this displays a subtle almost effortless power, with intense flavours of pear, nectarine, lime, and hazelnut supported by elegant oak, spice and layers of brioche. A wine of stunning balance and supreme length, this will offer plenty of joy over the coming decade or two.
"99-plus/100. Let's put it this way. This is the closest I have come to awarding a wine 100 points...Stellar wine from a stellar vintage. The remarkable this is that this is a wine 100 percent barrel fermented in new French oak barriques with regular lees stirring for 11 months - and it certainly doesn't taste excessive, or even slightly oak. It has such high-fidelity purity with complex seductive aromatics of vanilla bean and light oatmeal with a cutting minerality and spicy lift. But the palate, oh the palate. This is where things start to explode. Power, poise and persistence with a dry savouriness balancing the intense ripe fruit. It is such a long finish with an ever so slightly, charry finish completing a remarkable wine"- Ray Jordan, The West Australian, 27 February 2021.
"...98 Points. A wine which confidently walks the tightrope between elegance and sheer power but at all times, as with everything to do with this wine, it is impeccably balanced. 2018 seems yet another truly brilliant vintage in the region – but it seems that it almost always is. This scintillating chardonnay will improve in the coming years (be in no hurry). A wine which deserves a score somewhere around the 98 to 100. I have gone 98, only because I have no doubt it is going to get even better."- Ken Gargett, winepilot.com.au.
"96 Points. The first thing I noticed here was the intensity. The fruit intensity. It’s a striking wine, explosive in a refined way, elegant and textural at once, persistent. Its presence and power can be admired and enjoyed now but wow does this have a future, and a long one. White peach, citrus, pear, sweet cedar and almonds. The whole is more than its parts. It’s beautiful, pure, exemplary.”- Campbell Mattinson, The Wine Front, February 2021.
