Pegasus Bay Waipara Valley Chardonnay 2022 $45
Impressively glossy and golden in the glass and for a Chardonnay, it’s a serious supermodel. Roaring with grilled grapefruit, baked nectarine, toasted almonds and lemon pith, it only gets better as the slippery, silky textures kick in. Hints of struck match, smoked walnutty complexity and a brisk, yet creme caramel-type kick to finish. Elegantly structured but powerfully proportioned, it’s an absolute stunner.
Paired with Lemon Roasted Butterflied Chicken Issue 125 Dish Magazine 2025
From the winery:
Grown in free-draining, north-facing terraces which benefit from being in the lee of the Teviotdale Range, which gives maximum protection from the Pacific’s easterly breezes and thus creates a unique mesoclimate. The vines are over 30 years old, with a large proportion planted on their own roots. They are located on the “Glasnevin Gravels” where greywacke stones, silt and loam have been washed down from the mountains over the millennia. The soil is of low fertility, resulting in naturally reduced vine vigour. This produces low yields of optimally ripened, high-quality, flavourful grapes, which fully express the qualities of this unique terroir. The vineyard has warm days, but the nights are amongst the coolest in the Waipara Valley, drawing out the ripening period of the grapes, while still retaining good natural acidity.
The Season:
Average weather over flowering resulted in a balanced crop, meaning no further fruit thinning was carried out. This was followed by a cooler-than-average summer, which delayed the ripening process. Fortunately, a warm, dry autumn allowed the grapes to be left on the vines till later in the season, where they were able to achieve the desired level of ripeness.
Harvest and winemaking:
We use traditional Burgundian winemaking methods. The fruit was hand-picked in stages during late March and early April, and then gently trodden underfoot to increase complexity and phenolic structure. The free-run, non-clarified juice was then put into large French oak barrels (puncheons), 70% of which were old to limit the pickup of oak flavour. In these, it underwent primary fermentation by the grapes’ indigenous yeasts. The wine was then matured in the puncheons on its natural deposits of yeast lees (sur lie). In the summer after harvest, it started to go through spontaneous secondary (malolactic) fermentation. It was regularly tasted during this time, and the fermentation was stopped when the ideal balance was obtained. It had approximately 12 months of maturation before bottling.
