Tony Bish Heartwood Chardonnay Hawke's Bay 2024

Wine Orbit

The complex and enticing bouquet shows ripe apricot, rockmelon, vanilla, roasted hazelnut, and brioche aromas, followed by a wonderfully weighted palate offering plush texture backed by beautifully pitched acidity, making it sumptuous yet graceful and engaging. At its best: 2026 to 2034.

Inside Burgundy

At once both refined but also quietly concentrated. Aromas of grilled white nectarine, red apple and pink grapefruit are joined by smart sweet biscuit oak which helps to create a bigger-framed, fuller style of chardonnay. A touch of smoky reduction in the background. Despite the concentration and intensity, there is a delightful unforced character to this wine. Really needs at least another 3-5 years to show at its best.

James Suckling

An enticing nose of stone fruit, dried herbs and sweet baking spices. Medium-bodied with crisp acidity. Focused, structured and lively with lots of energy in the flavorful, lingering finish. Sustainable

Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier

Aromas and yellow peach and apricot, vanilla and quietly spoken wood scents. Youthful and nicely complex without being loud or verbose. As the wine opens out in glass the scents of lees become stronger and melt into the overall bouquet. Dry with plenty of weight and satin-cream mouthfeel, flavours mirror the bouquet led by citrus then stone fruits, lees and vanilla wood spice and a gentle smoked wood quality. Well made, nice length and impact with best drinking from mid to late 2026 through 2032+.”

Candice Chow

Purity through a citruscore, layering spice and flint over a soft yetcrunchy acid line, lending an appetising, linear finish.

The Real Review

A brilliant return to full form, this 2024 is a step up from the 2023 in concentration, density and length while being approachable younger. Unlike the Golden Egg, which sees no oak (fermenting and ageing in concrete eggs), the Heartwood is fermented and aged in specially graded Taransaud oak barrels to create the classic marriage of oak and chardonnay. The fruit comes from Kokako Farms in the Ohiti Valley, and from Two Terraces Vineyard in Mangatahi. A layered and complex array of wood-smoke, char, cedar, cinnamon and white pepper precede a taut core of green apple, oyster shell and flint before decadent flavours of lemon curd, cashew butter and vanilla envelops the finish. There is very good fruit weight, balanced towards generosity and approachability—a classic chardonnay in every way. There is enough acidity and oak tannin to provide a scaffold for the mid-weight flavours to turn savoury and nutty but there is no pressing need to cellar it: it’s delicious as it is.

Joelle Thomson

Heartwood Chardonnay is a labour of love made from hand picked grapes from two vineyard sites in Hawke's Bay; the referred Two Terraces vineyard in Mangatahi and the evocatively named Kōkakos Farms Vineyard in the Ohiti Valley. These excellent sites combine to bring flesh, body and balancing acidity to his wine, which was whole bunch pressed for full fermentation in French oak barriques; a combination of seasoned and new barrels. Further ageing for 11 months in barrel brings depth, smoothness, thanks to the controlled oxidative effects of the barrels - and it adds a subtle note of cedary spice. This wine is an excellent expression of Hawke's Bay Chardonnay now and will further evolve over the next six to seven years+.

Vivino

(612 bedømmelser, set over alle årgange, "Højeste kvalitet for pengene af newzealandsk Chardonnay", 06-01-2025)