Moss Wood 1997 Chardonnay
| Harvested: | 6/3/1997 |
| Bottled: | 7/1/1998 |
| Released: | 1/4/1998 |
| Yield: | 2.58 t/ha |
| Baume: | 13.60 |
| Alcohol: | 14.00% |
| Vintage Rating: | 8/10 |
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Moss Wood 2023 Chardonnay – Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
I often view this wine in the context of the season it was grown. The style of Moss Wood Chardonnay is more consistent than the vintages that birth it, and so it becomes a fascinating lens through which to view the wine each year. The 2023 growing season (which, as…
Moss Wood 2023 Chardonnay – Ken Gargett, Wine Pilot
Amazing to think that Moss Wood’s oldest Chardonnay vines are now 48 years of age. Fermentation for this cracking Chardonnay was finished in 228-litre French oak barriques. The wine was then blended in tank and returned to barrel, with 49% new, for the next year and a half. The colour…
Moss Wood 2023 Chardonnay – Angus Hughson, Wine Pilot
A more refined edition of Moss Wood Chardonnay bursting with sherbet, melon, and citrus tones that are powerful, taut and well integrated with toasty French oak. Bone dry and embryonic, it is highly reserved with a chalky texture while just starting to build nutty, peanut brittle tones. Super young and…
Moss Wood 2021 Chardonnay – Erin Larkin, The Wine Advocate
In October 2021, I stopped in for half a day at Moss Wood and tasted through the Chardonnays (estate and Ribbon Vale) and Cabernets (estate and Ribbon Vale) from barrel, to help me better understand the spectrum of coopers and their impact on the finished wines. So, having looked at…
Moss Wood 2023 Chardonnay – Wine Worth Writing About – Serious
Medium gold with a touch of cyan and a nose of luscious white peach, fresh fig, lemon zest, toasted crumpets with butter and honey, cashew, raw pistachio, vanilla-rich creme brulee and a touch of Sicilian green olive. In the mouth it’s creamy, gently saline, charged with tense acidity and…
Moss Wood 2023 Chardonnay – Fergal Gleeson, Great Wine Blog
The nose tells you that you are in for something complex and delicious. A lightning rod of refreshing acid runs through this wine robed in lime, grapefruit and textured tannins. The Moss Wood house style is traditionally a rich and full bodied Wilyabrup Chardonnay. Perhaps it’s the cooler vintage…
Moss Wood 2023 Chardonnay – Ray Jordan, Ray Jordan Wine
One of the best chardies yet from Moss Wood, and that’s saying something with the quality of wines over the years. The nose is an immediately captivating combo of lemon curd, quince and cashew with just a subtle lift of zest. The palate has a sprightly energy with a crisp…
Moss Wood 2022 Chardonnay – Cassandra Charlick, Decanter
Creamy nougat, with a simmering, flinty minerality and lemon curd on the nose. There’s gentle yet opulent oak spice, a little char and pretty white florals lifting things up to craft an elegant and refined picture. In its youth the oak is still persistent, but time should nestle this further…
Moss Wood 2022 Chardonnay – Jane Faulkner – James Halliday, The Wine Companion
It falls into the big, rich and ripe camp. Bold flavours of dried pears and apricots with some apple compote dusted in warm spices and butter. Lashings of oak, cedary sweet and spicy, which is bolstering the palate even more. It’s a solid wine, and no doubt it has a…
Moss Wood 2021 Chardonnay – Jane Faulkner – James Halliday, The Wine Companion
Fans of bold, rich and ripe chardonnay will relish this wine. Off a cooler vintage, so thankfully there’s plenty of acidity here to offset those full flavours of ripe white peach, mango, and preserved lemon rind with loads of oak adding baking spices and woodsy characters. A hint of butterscotch,…
Tasting Notes
The wine has medium to deep straw colour, with some green tints. On the nose, it shows very interesting complexities: the traditional fruit aromas of peach, melon and citrus; sweet marmalade-like richness with toasty oak; and a smokey almond character from the malolactic fermentation. The palate has similar complexities.
Its structure is quite fine, perhaps unusually so given the wine's 14% alcohol content. This gives the wine good acidity and freshness, and with well-balanced tannins on the finish, there is the right sort of make-up for good cellaring. Certainly we are very pleased with the peach and grapefruit flavours and the background characters of bacon, marmalade, bread dough and oak. The tannin structure of the Chardonnay is one of the paradoxes of the 1997 vintage. It has been our experience that in the very low-yielding years, the tannins can be too dominant. However, with the 1997 this is not the case and the reasons for this are not all that clear. It probably reflects the fact that the wine has long, lively and complex fruit flavours that balance the structure and smother it to a degree.
Vintage Notes
The 1997 vintage was one of the more difficult ones in Moss Wood's relatively short history. While the vines were flowering, strong winds swept the vineyard significantly reducing the chardonnay crop. This situation was exacerbated by gusty winds which battered the vineyard for a month from late in September. The worst hail storm in memory on December 11th caused great damage to the pinot and the spirits of the vigneron. Rain in February and March took the edge off summer weather which had promised an exceptional vintage.
Production Notes
The wine was made according to the usual practice at Moss Wood: the grapes were crushed and drained so that there was no skin contact. All pressings were included in the wine with the juices cold settled for three days in stainless steel tanks, inoculated with a pure yeast culture and fermented until half way at 18C. They were then racked into one hundred per cent new French barriques where they finished fermentation. Seventy five per cent of the wine was allowed to go through a malolactic fermentation. The chardonnay was left on its gross lees for three months and spent a further ten months in barrel on its fine lees.
Cellaring Notes
1997 Moss Wood Chardonnay is a wine that Moss Wood was most pleased with and one which we believe is a serious cellaring prospect with the potential to improve over ten years. It has sufficient fruit depth and complexity to also offer attractive short term drinking. Optimum drinking 2009.