10/01/08
Dog Point Chardonnay 2006
Michael Cooper's Buyer's Guide to NZ Wines 2009
Category: Dog Point Chardonnay
Posted by: margaret
5 star
This distinguished wine reflects the experience and talents of winemaker James Healy and viticulturist Ivan sutherland, both ex-Cloudy Bay. Grown in Sutherland's Dog Point vineyard, on the south side of the Wairau Valley, the wine is fermented with indigenous yeasts, matured for 18- 20 months in French oak barriques (20 -25 per cent new), and given a full softening malolactic fermentation. The 2006 vintage is vibrant, tightly structured, minerally and complex. Still youthful, it is a very classy wine - fragrant and weighty, with concentrated grapefruit and but flavours, a hint of toasty oak and a crisp, dry, lasting finish. Open mid 2009+.