CHARDONNAY THAT’S FLAVOURED TO THE MAX

Wc07Sept09

david ellis

AN unseasonally cool February after moderate mid-summer conditions in the Adelaide Hills in 2008 certainly gave makers there plenty to think about, but there was worse to come in March when conditions swung from cool to one of the longest heatwaves in South Australian history.

Matt O'Leary at Wolf Blass, however, managed to get all the fruit for his white wines off the vines before the heatwave hit, and because of those earlier cool conditions this fruit was flavoured to the max, resulting for him in a really outstanding 2008 Wolf Blass Gold Label Adelaide Hills Chardonnay.

A very elegant wine rich with varietal Chardonnay flavours, it has a nice creamy texture, and aromas of grapefruit, white peach and subtle nutty oak.

Pay $25.99 and match with a creamy seafood mornay or roast pork. And while enjoyable now, it'll develop nicely over the next three to five years for even greater pleasure down the track.

ONE FOR LUNCH: NOT many wine labels take their name from supporters of the Temperance Movement, but Wynns' Alex 88 does just that.

A Miss Nora Alexander lived on the land at Coonawarra that became the Alex 88 block, and as a supporter of the Women's Temperance Movement dictated that after her death, the property not be sold for growing grapes; her nephew, however, sold it to a neighbouring winery some years later, and it was later bought by Wynns.

A 2006 Wynns' Alex 88 Cabernet Sauvignon (the number 88 comes about because the vineyard was planted in 1988) is a full bodied wine with beautifully forward blackberry fruit flavours, integrated oak and lingering tannins; a lovely red well worth the $38.99 price tag to share with roast lamb and garlic mash.

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PHOTO CAPTIONS:

[] GREAT with seafood mornay now – even greater in a few more years

[] SOMETHING rare: a label named after a Temperance supporter