Church Road Tom MacDonald Hawke's Bay NZ Chardonnay 2009

97/100 55

This flagship label is an important statement from Church Road, a winery that already makes one of the country's best Chardonnays (the Reserve label). I was intrigued to see whether they could beat their already high standard and how they would attempt to do so. My first impression was of a surprisingly subtle wine - I'd expected greater initial impact. However the flavours continued to build and change for a long time after the wine has been swallowed (or in my case spat). This is an extraordinarily complex wine with nuances of citrus, spice, mineral/slate, toast/bread crust, bran biscuit and oak. The oak is slightly too dominant now but promises to mellow and integrate with a little bottle age. It's a minor niggle and completely outbalanced by the wine's many other qualities, most notably its extraordinary power that's delivered with consummate subtlety.