Clearview Estate Reserve Chardonnay

If you like your Chardonnays on the lighter side, step aside. Clearview’s Reserve Chardonnay is unashamedly a bigger, bolder, more powerful style! An iconic NZ Chardonnay with a huge following and listed in Michael Cooper’s prestigious “NZ Super Classics” list.

Produced from vineyards that sit right on the Te Awanga coastline there in Hawke’s Bay, from 28 year old vines, 10 different soil types, 4 separate picking times, 10 barrel makers, 3 yeast strains and wild yeasts – wine maker Tim Turvey doesn’t do anything half arsed when it comes to his Reserve Chardonnay that’s for sure.

This is the wine that Tim aims to be a “big, grunty, upfront” style – and it rarely fails to hit the mark!

Selected as part of Cam Douglas MS’s “Top 12 Hawke’s Bay Annual Chardonnay Collection 2023”. Cam said “This was no easy task and each wine was tasted a minimum of three times before making it to the first cut.”

Scoring 4 1/2 Stars with Kiwi critic Michael Cooper who said “For its premium Chardonnay label, Clearview aims for a ‘big, grunty, upfront’ style – and hits the target with ease. It’s typically a hedonist’s delight – an arrestingly bold, intense, savoury, mealy, complex wine with layers of flavour. Hand-picked from mature vines at Te Awanga, it is fermented and matured in French oak casks (typically 40 to 50 per cent new). Already drinking well, the 2023 vintage is a bright lemon/green, weighty and sweet-fruited wine, with rich, vibrant, stone fruit flavours and a long, harmonious, slightly creamy-textured finish. Best drinking 2027+”.

Enjoy it over the next several years and watch it mellow and develop. Chardonnays like this are great food wines – try chicken, pork and seafood (like crayfish).