Accolades
• Winner – James Halliday Chardonnay Challenge 2025
• 96 Points – Gary Walsh, The Wine Front (Feb 2025)
• 94 Points – Huon Hooke, The Real Review (Mar 2025)
About the Wine
The 2023 vintage has great intensity with opulent flavours of ginger and stone fruit. The palate is long and flavoursome, showing remarkable depth and extract thanks to a long ripening season.
Vintage
2023 was a late, cool, and wet La Niña season. The resulting wines display excellent acidity and distinctive cool-season flavour.
Vineyard
From low-yielding vines at the estate vineyard in Lenswood, first planted in 1999. The site has east- and west-facing aspects and reaches 500 metres above sea level.
Vinification
Hand-picked and hand-sorted, whole-bunch pressed, then fermented in 500-litre puncheons with 30% new oak. The wine underwent full malolactic fermentation and spent 10 months in oak before resting in tank prior to bottling.
Cellar
Will reward careful cellaring for up to 15 years.
Critic Tasting Notes
“Another cool season with many vagaries throughout the growing season that led to a very late harvest. A thrilling aroma of star jasmine blooms, snow pea tendrils, white peach fuzz and Greek yoghurt creaminess. There is oyster mushroom, cheese rind savouriness and raw cashews. The sheer attractiveness of this wine on release is astounding.” — Shanteh Wale
“Sophisticated style. Saline. Very adult. And very, very good. Yes.” — Gary Walsh, The Wine Front (96 Points)
“Very light yellow colour; smoky snuffed candle and waxy aromas, some smoky reduction and toastiness from oak, but the wine is very complex in a savoury way. Very fine and piercingly intense on the palate; tensioned and focused, delicate and light on its feet.” — Huon Hooke, The Real Review (94 Points)
Specifications
Winery: Shaw + Smith
Region: Adelaide Hills, South Australia
Variety: Chardonnay
Vintage: 2023
Style: White Wine – Buttery and Complex
Sweetness: Dry
Winemakers: Adam Wadewitz and Martin Shaw
Drinking Window: 2026 – 2032
Closure: Screw Cap
Alcohol Abv 12.5%
Food Pairing
Excellent with roasted poultry, seafood or mushroom dishes.
