Howard Park’s award winning Chardonnay is handcrafted from grapes sourced from the cool climate region of Western Australia’s Great Southern. The cool growing conditions produce highly flavoured and tightly structured Chardonnay grapes from which only the best free run juice is selected each vintage to become part of the Howard Park Chardonnay. The juice selected is placed on French oak barrels with a percentage of the barrels lees stirred for period determined each vintage to enhance the savoury textural characters. The remaining barrels are sulphured to preserve the delicate flavour and structure of the Chardonnay and to restrict the occurrence of malolactic fermentation.
The Howard Park Chardonnay is a modern style of Australian’ barrel-fermented Chardonnay: elegant, lean and sophisticated. This wine displays mineral, citric and pear fruit characters with some savoury and nutty notes from the interaction of oak and lees. The Howard Park Chardonnay will enormously reward those that are patient enough to cellar this wine. It will develop wonderful secondary characters after about a year and will drink well for five years.
Since its release in 1993 the Howard Park has impressed judges and wine writers both nationally and internationally. In 2003 it was awarded a Trophy for the Best White Wine at the Tri-National Wine Challenge, a Gold Medal in 2006 at the Concours Mondial de Bruxelles and a Blue Gold Medal (Top 100 Wine) at the 2007 and 2008 Sydney International Wine Challenge. The Howard Park Chardonnay has also been listed in the Best of the Best in James Halliday’s Wine Companion 2007 and 2006 editions “…seamless and super-fine…epitome of elegance…” the Howard Park Chardonnay is truly a wine of distinction.
Pale straw in colour with a bright green hue on the rim, the Howard Park 2007 Chardonnay is an elegant wine that exhibits balance, sophistication and length of flavour. Lifted melon, grapefruit, and citrus fruit characters define the wine’s aroma with underlying hazelnut and bready complexity appearing with time in the glass. Subtle barrel fermentation provides a fine creamy texture to the mid palate, which exhibits more weight than the 2006. The crisp acidity adds linearity to the palate and an immaculate finish with persistent citrus, cashew and toast characters.
Complete Tasting Note
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