From the Cellar: Villa Maria Cellar Selection Chardonnay Marlborough 2010 – $$

I’m giving the ‘O’ series Reidel Chardonnay glasses their first serious workout…

Golden colour in the glass. 13.5% alcohol.

Elegant, refined bouquet. Golden stonefruits, restrained sense of oak, vanilla, mealy aromas and summer hay, signalling a complexity of tastes to follow…

In the mouth, biscuity and rich fruit, balanced acidity and oak. Lively on attack, and creamy and taut on the mid palate with complex multiple further layers of flavour behind. It has the body to hold up and exploit a little age, and shows not a hint of oxidation. An exemplary wine, superb.

I am so glad when a bottle goes through my cellar and comes out tasting like this! Outstanding 5