Man O' War Valhalla Chardonnay 2019

Accolades

Bob Campbell, MW: 95/100 & Top Rank. Rich, complex chardonnay with grapefruit, nectarine, green apple, mint and a saline-mineral character. A lively, high-energy wine that promises to age very well indeed.

Cameron Douglas MS: 94/100.  A rich and captivating bouquet with aromas of vanilla and roasted peach, baked apple and cashew nut, sour cream and burnt butter, nectarine and baking spice. There's no mistaking the power, the oak and the variety. Full-bodied and creamy textured on the palate with stone fruit and grapefruit flavours, vanilla and rw sugar with baking spice and smoke flavours of oak, fine tannins and mediumacidity. This is a big wine, but very well made, quite serious , rich, bold, nutty and ready. Best drinking from 2022 through 2028+.

Tasting note

The 2019 Valhalla has a wealth of ripe aromas; nectarine and grapefruit with complex layers of baking bread, cashew and flinty reductive elements. Rich and fulsome on the palate, with a spine of acidity harmoniously interwoven with richness and a ripe citrus finish.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Type: White wine from New Zealand

Varietal: 100% Chardonnay

Food match: Match with poultry, pork and veal dishes.

Alcohol: 14% vol

Wine style:  dry

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: contains sulphites

Vineyards: Gorse Laneway, Root Rake, Bitch, Nikau, South 2, Noises, Waiheke Island, New Zealand.

Vintage: 2019 was an exceptional vintage with a perfect fruit set in the Spring followed by a hot settled summer and practically no rain during the harvest months.

Winemaking: All Chardonnay parcels are hand harvested and macerated before pressing. The pressed juice is left un-fined in tank to begin spontaneous fermentation with wild yeasts. The fermenting juice is then fed and transferred to 500 litre French oak puncheons for fermentation that is hot and fast. The wines are then left on gross lees until blending, small doses of sulphur dioxide are added at topping to help prevent the onset of malolactic fermentation, no lees stirring is carried out. Blending takes place in the New Year and bottling is carried out prior to the following vintage, approximately 11 months in oak. Barrel: 36% New French oak Puncheons 64% seasoned.

Cellaring potential: 2025

The Name Vahalla: The shining and golden hall in Norse Mythology where the souls of fallen Viking warriors chosen by Odin feasted with the gods, the name Valhalla is conferred upon our finest barrels of Chardonnay selected each vintage by winemaker Duncan MacTavish.

Produced and bottled by: Man O' War Vineyards, PO Box 1287, Shortland Street, Auckland 1140, New Zealand