2023 Te Mata Elston Chardonnay

Te Mata |Hawkes Bay |Chardonnay
Glowing, pristine Chardonnay from a beautiful site in Hawke's Bay.

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Sale price$50.00
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In stock, ready to ship
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Description

Te Mata’s Elston Chardonnay has been a gold standard in Hawke’s Bay for decades, and the 2023 vintage is another stunner. Sourced from the estate’s hillside vineyards, this is a Chardonnay that knows exactly what it’s doing - layered, complex, and perfectly judged.

Whole-cluster pressed and wild-fermented in French oak, with a touch of malolactic fermentation and 11 months on lees, this wine has all the hallmarks of top-flight Chardonnay. But it’s never about excess - Te Mata nails that balance between richness and drive.

It’s got the goods: white peach, citrus, and toasted hazelnut, with a line of flinty minerality that keeps it tight. The palate is pure class - creamy yet focused, rolling through lemon curd, nectarine, and nutmeg, finishing long and fresh with a lick of saline acidity.

This is what Hawke’s Bay does best. Drink now or stash it away for the next 6–8 years - it’ll only get better.

94 points - "Bright fruit, citrus and white nectarine, almond, fine spiced oak, a bit of bread dough. Juicy, white fruit and citrus, a bit of flint, a burst of flavour, some saline characters, a slight fresh pineapple thing, with a lively gently savoury/toasted hazelnut finish of excellent length. It’s a brighter, tighter, more restrained iteration of Elston, and I like that about it. It certainly has some get-up-and-go." - Gary Walsh (The Wine Front)

94 points - "The 2023 Elston Chardonnay has been made since 1984, this being its 29th vintage. The nose leads with a profusion of white pineapple and green apple, roasted hazelnut/cashew and white flowers. There is an abundance of toasty oak, but it's not the main player onstage, which is great. It supports the fruit, and in the mouth, the purity and power of the fruit really emerges. There is really structural grip and shape to the wine, and the acidity is juicy and feels woven into every aspect. It is impressive, flavorsome and almost achingly intense, with great length through the finish. Recommended. 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

Handpicked and whole-bunch pressed, the 2023 vintage was about only 40% of its usual volume. It was barrel fermented with indigenous malolactic fermentation, in this case about 85%, with the focus being purity of acidity and fresh fruit aromatically. Matured for 11 months in French oak, the wine had some bâtonnage prior to sulfuring, which is right after malolactic fermentation." - Erin Larkin (The Wine Advocate)

Produced since 1984, Elston is an outstanding New Zealand Chardonnay, grown at Te Mata Estate’s oldest vineyards on the hillsides above the winery. It is rich and complex with flavors of fresh pineapple, white peach, and nougat.

ORIGIN
Elston is named for Elston Hall in Nottinghamshire, the ancestral home of Charles Darwin’s family. Darwin’s ‘theory of natural selection’ forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory, the foundation of biology. The wyvern symbol of Elston Hall appears on the label.

VINEYARDS
The superb quality of the 2023 vintage was immediately apparent in the fully ripe grapes that were hand-harvested from their separate, individual plots within Te Mata Estate’s vineyards between February 22 and March 15, 2023.

WINEMAKING
Each parcel was gently whole-cluster pressed, cold-settled, and racked to new and seasoned French oak barrels for fermentation. The resulting wines remained in contact with their yeast lees, with a number going through malolactic fermentation. The finest lots were selected for further maturation, spending a total of 11 months in barrel, with 36% being new oak.

CELLARING POTENTIAL
Elston ’23 will continue to develop in bottle for six to eight years from harvest.

TECHNICAL ANALYSIS AT BOTTLING
• pH: 3.28
• Total Acidity (as Tartaric): 7.1 g/L
• Alcohol: 13.0%
• Residual Sugar: Dry

Price Bracket $41 to $50
Type White
Body Full Bodied
Variety Chardonnay
Country New Zealand
Region Hawkes Bay
Reviewed By The Wine Front
The Wine Advocate
Critic Score 94
Size 750ml
Vintage 2023
Closure Cork

Te Mata Estate

Te Mata Estate has one of the richest winemaking histories in all of New Zealand.

With vineyards planted back as far as 1896, the rich history of this iconic Hawke's Bay producer is enviable in the relatively young NZ wine landscape.

Their wines come exclusively from carefully selected sites across Hawke's Bay. The aim to craft classic, structural wines that are comparable to the very best the world has to offer.

The Te Mata Estate Coleraine is considered by many as NZ's premier Bordeaux blend. A shining jewel in the crown of the Hawke's Bay region.

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