Tony Bish Skeetfield Chardonnay 2020

Reviews

International Wine Challenge 2022: 95/100 & Gold. Flinty mineral notes with lemon tart and pith. A creamy, buttery mid palate with a refreshing finish. Complex and multi-layered.

VINOUS - Rebecca Gibb MW: 95/100. The 2020 Chardonnay Skeetfield is a beautiful butterfly still in its cocoon. This dry-farmed, low-yielding site has created a wine with a sense of power in its focused core of white stone fruit. Fermented and raised in French oak over a year, it offers impeccable integration of subtle oak and fruit with a silken texture no doubt assisted by delicate handling from grape to glass, while time on lees has surely provided some of that attractive mouthfeel. What I like most about this wine, though, is its texture, tension and long length; it has a sense of direction and the flavors justkeep going. I think this will look great at five years. If there are any magnums available, put your hand up.

Bob Campbell, MW (The Real Review): 95/100 & Top Rank.  Old vine magic. It's a soft, rich and concentrated chardonnay with typical Mendoza clone intensity. Luscious peach, nectarine, toast, roasted chestnut and spicy oak flavours with a hint of almost nutty barrel fermentation character.

Cameron Douglas MS: 95/100.  Fantastic bouquet - complex and layered, mineral and sepcific. Aromas of gin flint and wet srtony mineral attributes, fresh peach and white apricot, apple and floral highlights. The oak is fine and new-ish. On the palate - fantatsic - fresh, vibrant, new and complex. Flavours of white and yellow stone fruits, mineral and flinty qualities, fine lees complexity and a long intrgiguing finish. This wine will continue to build complexity over the next 2-3 years and least through till 2030 if stored well. Excellent drinking from 2022 through 2030+. Easily the best Skeetfield from the Bish stable of fine wines. Be quick!

Michael Cooper: 5 stars. If you love powerful, bold Chardonnays, try the authoritative Tony Bish Wines Tony Bish Skeetfield Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2020 (*****). Hand-harvested from mature vines and barrel-fermented, it is already very approachable, with loads of personality. Sturdy, with a fragrant, toasty bouquet (60 per cent new oak), it has rich, ripe stonefruit flavours, balanced acidity, and a complex, finely textured, lasting finish. Best drinking 2025+.

Tasting Note:

Lifted aromas of brioche, peach, vanilla, citrus rind and toasted hazelnuts. The palate is powerful and full bodied with richness and tremendous length. Flavours of peach, lemon rind, toasted hazelnuts, and vanilla abound with great length and freshness on the finish.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Type: White wine

Varietal: Chardonnay

Food match: smoked fish with egg and stone fruit

Alcohol: 13.5% vol

Wine style: dry

Total acidity: 6.32 g/l

Winemaking: The Skeetfield Vineyard has old vine dry- farmed Mendoza Chardonnay vines. The fruit was hand-picked and whole bunch pressed with minimal settling. This wine was 100% barrel fermented and matured, with 60% new Taransaud French oak. Indigenous ferment and malo-lactic ferment have provided complexity and depth. Battonage on lees has yielded a superb textural quality. Minimal handling to bottling has preserved the purity and intensity of the wine. Skeetfield is a wine with exceptional power and grace, and will greatly reward the patient.

The name Skeetfield: Skeetfield is named after a historic clay bird shooting (Skeet Shooting) site in Hawkes Bay owned by the Gunn family. Here generations of Gunn's practiced skeet shooting. Then the area was cleared and planted in grapes.

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: Contains sulfites.

Cellaring potential: 2027+

Closure: Screwcap

Produced and bottled by: Bish Wines Ltd., 3 Ossian Street, Ahuiri, 4110 Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

To all Chardonnay wines