Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay 2018

Professional Ratings

• 98 Australian Wine Companion

  A more expressive – and complex – bouquet than this great, long-lived, wine normally offers at this age, the palate matching the bouquet in its depth and power. Grapefruit, spice and apple tart are its markers, and it's the vineyard that bestows its resilience.

• 98 Robert Parker's Wine Advocate

  This 2018 vintage is the big guy. It was the season where all the stars aligned for viticulturists and winemakers in Margaret River, with good yields, climatic conditions and quality. The 2018 Art Series Chardonnay today is entering its sixth year from harvest, and for me, this is when the Gingin clone drinking window starts to open. However, this wine was great from the first, and it is both ripe and powerful, tight and long. You get salted peach, wild amounts of exotic spice (Indian in the main, but a splay of Marrakesh marketplace as well), saffron and turmeric, galangal and white pepper. In the mouth, there is roasted fennel seeds and shaved fennel too. It's a ripping wine, kaleidoscopic and swirling—magic in its way. Rating: 98+

• 97 Decanter
  THE ICON From an excellent vintage – warm, with very few hot days – this muscular yet lithe Chardonnay suffuses the senses with Leeuwin Estate's clear and penetrating signature perfume of granular pear and fleshier fresh fig. Harmonious lemony acidity makes for an ultra-long, seamless finish, through a palate of acacia, lanolin, smoke and crème patisserie. The concentrated fruit effortlessly mops up the 100% new oak. A luminous, graceful and balanced powerhouse.
• 97 Wine Spectator

  This impressive white is complex, supple and elegant, though not shy on intensity. Opens with creamy, satiny notes of apricot, pear, lemon curd and passion fruit puree, with touches of toasted hazelnut, salted caramel, jasmine and green tea. The way the details mingle with and complete one another makes this as complex as it is refreshing, with a fresh thread of acidity weaving in and out. Drink now

• 95 Wine & Spirits

  The Leeuwin Estate, a former cattle sta-tion between the town of Margaret River and the sea, became a vineyard soon after Denis Horgan purchased the vast property in 1969. He planted a parcel of chardonnay vines in 1975, which continue to produce the fruit for Art Series, a chardonnay with a proven track record for long aging. Tim Lovett makes this wine by crushing the fruit, allowing it to settle for three days in contact with its skins, then racking it into French oak bar-rels to ferment with cultured yeasts. He ages the wine in those barrels (all of them new), with lees stirring, for 11 months. While that approach may sound technical—yes, the wine is clean—it results in a chardonnay that buzzes with energy, quiet at first, then gain- ing youthful, athletic power. You might catch a sensation of peach, or beeswax, or lemon and milkweed, all of it integrated into a holis-tic impression and one that retains its inte-gration for days after the bottle is opened.

• 94 Wine Enthusiast

  Leeuwin's top Chardonnay is set for the long haul. Currently fairly tightly wound, melon, marzipan and flint notes peek through the cracks. There's a lovely crunch of acidity, textural weight and depth on the medium-weight palate, brightened by a tang of citrus and stone fruit. Elegant with a saline finish.