A group of us got together to benchmark Chardonnays. All wines are served blind. This time the spotlight was on the 2005 vintage although some French wines from 2004 snuck in along with a couple of Aussie benchmarks such as the Giaconda. This wine was a highlight for me, it looked great, pity we only had a single bottle. I am aware that some winoramista are over this style, but I love it. The nose has some citrus plus a slight reduced character that I associate with solids. The palate showed these characters but the pencil shaving oak influence is high with a bit of yeast ester. Very fresh and quite long with a long future. The tasting also brought up some discussion about closures. Giaconda have not used Diam to seal their wines and this example looked perfect. Interestingly, two of us took the same benchmark, made by another producer. Both bottles were sealed under Diam, but they looked different, one bottle showing fresher fruit than the other. One of the local makers wine, also sealed under Diam did not look very good, so once it was revealed he opened another that looked fresher. The closure issue is very tricky and one thing we have not tried before is to look at multiple examples of one wine sealed under the same closure. A possible future project for the renowned GW?

Rated : 94 Points
Tasted : Feb07
Alcohol : 13.8%
Closure : Cork
Drink : 2007 - 2012