20.3.12

Quick Chardonnay Interlude: Amani Vineyards Chardonnay 2007, Stellenbosch


Unfortunately I don’t know much about today’s winery. It is relatively young (est. 1997), it is situated in the Polkadraai Hills in Stellenbosch, the winemaker is a very energetic young woman named Carmen Stevens and it seems to be very much in favour of John Platter wine guide in recent years. The vines for this Chardonnay were 10 to 11 years old, grown on klapmuts and fernwood soil, the fermentation was 50% spontanious and the rest inoculated with a pre-selected yeast culture and finally the juice was aged for 10 months in 19.6% new French Oak. UUUUhhh!


Judged from the colour of this wine - it seemed pretty well aged. Pretty strawy golden yellow reflexes with hardly any particles. The nose was rather flinty, got a lot of aged lemon, some petrol and not a lot of typical oak scents. Same impressions from the taste! Here the lemon flavours reminded me of lemon-flavoured-whipped-cream which was supplemented with plenty of egg white and maybe some traces of egg shells. I couldn't spot any obvious difficulties or even faults. Nice, easy drinking, New-World (but not too New World ;-) ), semi bodied, classy Chardonnay for less than 10 Euros. No Problems at all!


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