Lawson's Dry Hills Reserve Chardonnay 2023

Reviews and accolades

Cameron Douglas MS: 95/100 & Top NZ Wine Selection 2025.  Lots to like about the bouquet and palate of this wine - aromas of barrel spice and roasted peaches, grapefruit and roasted brazil-nut butter, a rich leesy quality and power. A full-bodied, spice and nut rich attack framed by ripe stone fruit and pomaceous fruit flavours, smoke, toasty barrel and spice highlights. A lovely new world style and example. Complex and lengthy, best drinking from day of purchase through 2029.

Decanter World Wine Awards 2021: Silber & 90/100. Bruised apple and peach aromas to the fore, with brioche and gunflint back notes. A ripe style with lovely concentration.

International Wine Challenge 2025: 93/100 & Silver. Very attractive aromas of buttered toast, ripe tropical fruits and a characterful, mouth-filling palate.

Global Wine Masters 2025: Silver. 

Marlborough Wine Show 2025: Silber.

Tasting Note

An intriguing nose provides aromas of lemon zest, stone fruit, and a toasted smokiness together with a touch of flint. The palate features intense citrus flavours with a complex array of other characters, including spice and vanilla from the French oak and brioche from extended lees contact. This is a rich, full-flavoured wine that remains beautifully balanced by a fresh acidity.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Wine type: White wine from New Zealand

Grape variety: Chardonnay

Food match: Seafood, terrines and pates, risotto, chicken, pork and char-grilled foods, roasted vegetables, dishes with creamy or buttery sauces, pumpkin and other root vegetables.

Vineyard: Coastal vineyard situated on the banks of the Wairau Diversion, Marlborough, New Zealand. Sea breezes moderate temperatures, while the silts and river stones produce wines with a distinct minerality. The wine is predominantly from 25-year-old Mendoza vines (88%) and a small portion of a newer clone, 548, planted in 2018.

Winemaking: The grapes are hand-harvested and whole-bunch pressed, and the juice settled briefly before being racked to French oak barrels (22% new). The juice was fermented with wild yeast and allowed to undergo full malolactic fermentation. The wine was racked from barrel and blended prior to being bottled at the winery some ten months later.

Alcohol: 14% vol

Residual sugar: 2.4 g/l

Total acidity: 6.0 g/l

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: contains sulphites. Vegan.

Cellaring potential: until 2028

Closure: Screwcap

Ingredients: Grapes, preservative: sulphites; antioxidant: L ascorbic acid; stabilizing agent: yeast mannoproteins. 

Produced and bottled by: Lawson's Dry Hills Wines Limited, PO Box 4020, Redwood Village, Blenheim 7242, Neuseeland