Adelaide Hills Chardonnay

Bondar Wines

Sourced from a 400m elevation vineyard just south of Hahndorf in the Adelaide Hills, this is a wine of great complexity and powerful fruit. The days are warm, but the nights are freezing, and the vines run steeply down an eastern facing hillside, such that the sun disappears for them hours earlier than other areas of this site. As a result, the power of the fruit is always kept in balance by big acidity. The resulting wine sits ideally in the Bondar framework of purity balanced with nuances of savoury flavour.

Hand-picked and lightly pressed straight to french oak (25% new) sans sulphur for a natural ferment and ten months ageing. On the nose, brightly herbaceous like fresh picked dill with a touch of match stick opening into apple pie, peach cobbler, peanut brittle, and custard. It leaps onto the palate with terrific concentration, fleet footed acidity pleasingly bridled by some MLF without becoming a butter bomb. A broad creamy mouthfeel. Just outstanding. Balanced, delicious, difficult-to-put-down Chard. The long, happy finish gives notes of dried pineapple and a dab of salty browned butter.

95 points Halliday Wine Companion 2022: “Wild-yeast fermentation in (25% new) barrels, spontaneous malolactic and lees work, sans stirring in lieu of the low-yielding hot year. While I find the array of Mediterranean varieties at this estate compelling, this is exceptional chardonnay from the Hills. Riveting! A core of nougat, cashew, vanilla pod and oatmeal cream, with rims of mineral pungency and a frame flecked by stone-fruit references, sweet and savoury/sour. A thrilling tussle between extract, energy and structural binds." - Ned Goodwin MW.

“All the cashew and almond, white flowers and vanilla, stone fruit and nashi pear, a subtle mint coolness. It's glossy, layered, complex, but shot through with tight ripe lime acidity, and finishes savoury and creamy. A wonderful expression of Chardonnay here. All just so.” - 94pts Gary Walsh, The Wine Front.