2019 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay

Firmly standing at the top of the tree of Australian Chardonnays, Leeuwin Estate have turned out a spectacular release from the 2019 vintage.
Brilliant pale straw colour with a faint glimmer of green skirting the edges and a watery hue. Intense and highly complex the nose offers up an intoxicating mix of white peach, nectarine, light grapefruit and faint dried honey aromas which are intermeshed with biscuity oak, citrusy nougat, almond and gun flint notes. Rich and powerful yet simultaneously finely sculptured, sophisticated and brimming with freshness, the seductive palate is awash with bright white peach and nectarine fruits. Elements of dried honey, biscuity oak, roasted almonds, citrusy nougat and delicate infusions of gun flint gracefully expand across the back half. Supremely balanced, the focused finish exceptionally long and classy.
Drink over the next 8-10 years.
Alc. 13.5%

Other Reviews….
Leeuwin Art Series Chardonnay on release is an achingly painful thing to drink, because once you've known the utter pleasure these wines bring at 5 or more years of age, it becomes a mess of cognitive dissonance to drink them so young. They are closed, taut, coiled, but more than anything, populated by rippling fruit that undulates untold through the interminably long finish. They typically don't reveal their kaleidoscopic spice and prismatic fruit flavour until a little further down the track. So, all I can humbly do here, is place the vintage in context. Through the lens of the cool year, this glitters with a purity and finesse that is deeply attractive. Aligned in style with the 2017. Drink by 2042.
98 points
Erin Larkin – James Halliday’s Australian Wine Companion

It’s interesting to note the more refined, tighter style that Leeuwin has delivered over the last handful of years. They are still powerful, and rich in oak, but show less alcohol warmth and what you might call ‘breathiness’ these days. Anyway, a very good vintage for Chardonnay was 2019.
Pear, lemon oil, grapefruit, ginger, cinnamon and cedar oak, with a distinctly savoury sort of hazelnut character, along with some vanilla and white flower perfume. It’s tight, powerful, saline and precise, with a firm flintiness to texture, quite chalky, and superb spicy length with an almost umami aftertaste. I’m thinking grapefruits and biscuits, grilled nuts, even citrus zest.  And for all its power and oak, it keeps itself racy and refined. It’s a cracking release. Drink 2025-2032+
97 points
Gary Walsh – The Wine Front

In many ways the most Burgundian of any of the Leeuwin releases, this will rank up there with the best to date. There’s a waxy light mealy aroma which picks up nuances of limestone and spice with a trace of grapefruit. But it is the palate that really distinguishes it. There is an austerity with the minerally chalky feel that cuts through the fruit extending to a finish of extraordinary length. Precision and focus harness a wine of great power and poise before dry savoury edges lift the finish.
99 points
Ray Jordan - WinePilot.com