2023 L.A.S. Vino Chardonnay 'Wildberry Springs'
VINEYARD
Sitting in the heart of Willyabrup, growing on rich gravelly loam soils, this 25 year old vineyard is immaculate, with no vines out of place, it's almost perfect. It took a few years of begging to be able to pick fruit from this vineyard. Planted by John Durack, who’s family were the first to bring cattle over the top end into the kimberly. The vineyard is all gin-gin clone chardonnay. Tiny concentrated bunches full of flavour.
WINEMAKING
Hand picked first thing in the morning, chilled overnight, whole bunch pressed and fermented/ matured in 50% amphora of different shapes and sizes. We hope that the different sized vessels of different porosity provide differing fermentation kinetics and oxygen uptake into the wine. Providing complexity and depth in the same way different oak barrels are used. The remaining 50% is fermented and aged in oak barrels to provide familiarity and structure. A partial natural malolactic fermentation occured during its time in vessel softening the edges of the wine and providing length and depth.
WINE
Purity is the word that I think everytime I try this wine. Purity and elegance. Pure flavours of Willyabrup chardonnay, peach lemon, lime, green apple, a touch of cream and a hint of flint and struck match. The wine will age gracefully for 10 years if cellared correctly.
2022 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
"As is the L.A.S. way, this is complex yet oh-so-satisfying. It has a great depth of flavour with stone fruit and poached quinces, spicy with cinnamon quills, ginger and some coriander seeds, a hint of aniseed and an alluring wet stone/petrichor character – there's a lot going on here, folks. It’s textural with lovely phenolics, which add to the shape on the palate. Nic Peterkin builds lots of texture into his chardonnays without them every becoming too big or too much of a good thing: a Goldilocks wine, as in just right."
95/100
Halliday Wine Companion (Jane Faulkner)
2022 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
'Subtle bouquet of white nectarine, lemon, grapefruit, fresh, crisp and linear, lively with a fine cut of acidity. Fine boned and linear. Finishes long with mealy cashew complexity.'
95 points Angus Hughson
The Vintage Journal
2022 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
Apples to start in various forms, fresh, desiccated, and baked, along with notes of sweet pastry, baked crumble, ginger biscuits, cloves, nutmeg and a bit of toffee. It's full in flavour with chewy pineapple bits, a minty aftertaste and cedar spice. It's built with solid blocks of acidity upfront and creaminess in the back. Slate-like mineral' feel in the middle. Very flavoursome Chardonnay it is.
94 Points
The Wine Front
2021 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
"The wine is mineral and pure, but with a wall of savory tannin that rises up through the ranks. This has plenty of spice in the mix—white pepper, fresh ground nutmeg, something earthy (perhaps white truffles or fresh field mushrooms) and layers of stone fruit. Beautiful. An engaging wine of precision and line. It will only get better as it emerges from its shell."
95+ /100
Erin Larkin -Robert Parker Wine Advocate-
2021 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
Grapefruit is what grapefruit does. This is a pulpy chardonnay with presence. It bites, it rides and it lingers. Flint, stonefruit, understated cedar and that gorgeous, juicy, strong push of grapefruit flavour. You get substance here but you get plenty of linger, plenty of line. You also get a tautness. In general I would call this an elegant wine but I kept wanting to use the word strong. It feels it. None of its blows are glancing; it picks its marks and hit them. It's really good."
94+ Points
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
2020 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
"Predominantly (90%) Gingin clone, the rest a mix. Long primary fermentation (all wild yeasts) of 10 months, mlf in that time. Fresh curry leaf, white peach, crushed cashew, flat leaf parsley, red apple skins, a whack of pink grapefruit and layers of orchard flowers, gum leaf and licorice. What a cracking wine this is. A kaleidescopic array of fruit, a flinty, wild kind of countenance, and a long, sinuous line of flavour that gives a little 'come hither' at the final turn. Peterkin doesn't make enough of this wine. Or perhaps that's the secret."
97/100
Erin Larkin -Halliday's Wine Companion-
2020 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
'Impressive struck-match reductive edge, with lemon and pithy grapefruit notes plus richer peach fruits framed in spicy oak and pastry-like edges. The palate is super drilled with ripe peach and lemon fruit flavours that enrich to a creamy finish'
95/100
Nick Stock -Gourmet Traveller Wine-
2020 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
"Light straw-yellow colour, with a mellow, savoury, multi-layered bouquet with some buttery touches, yellow fruits, fresh herbs, a smoky hint and a trace of parmesan cheese. It's soft and savoury, texturally interesting—slightly viscous and almost granular—rich, yet refined and subtle, the finish lingering well."
95/100
Huon Hooke - The Real Review -
2020 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
'The colour is youthful and pale before aromas that are also bright, fresh and understated. Flinty, floral notes are first before the more traditional nectarine comes into the picture offset by some young oak that sits in balance. The palate is then flinty and chalky with a strong core of citrus fruits and savoury, nutty complexity. Super power gives a very long finish, again supported by oak. It’s tight right now but was even better on day 2 suggesting this is a wine with a strong future ahead of it.'
96/100
Angus Hughson -The Wine Pilot-
2020 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
"Such a textural chardonnay. It’s straw-coloured, whispered with flint and toast, gingery, run with both ripe pear and green pineapple flavours and then creamy again to close. It has an inherent power but it’s taut; it’ll be better when it relaxes a little."
93/100
Campbell Mattinson - The Wine Front
2019 L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay
"It’s from Willyabrup but flavour-wise it’s not as we know it. Arguably.
This is so fine, so tense, so nervy, so real. It has the goods and it knows it and yet still it feels apprehensive, intensely wrought; different. It tastes of ginger and green apples, green pineapple, bran, a touch of nougat, grapefruit and something else, something both creamy and unnerving at once. With its great complexity comes great elegance, both of which are remarkable in themselves. I’m not so much taken by it as taken aback; it’s a wine, as you drink it, that starts turning over in your mind. In fact it makes you look it in the eye, and wonder."
94+ points
Cambell Mattinson - The Wine Front
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