Tasting Notes 2014
Pale primrose yellow, Elston ’14 is stunning. An aroma of candied lemon and citrus blossom, then an explosion of peach crumble, apricot, lemon and nectarine. Notes of grapefruit and honey play through a soft, round palate of lemon custard and vanilla. With fabulous concentration and complexity, this is long, pure, fresh chardonnay with superb potential.
Elston ‘14 is bottled with leading technology ‘DIAM’ corks. These are produced using a liquid form of carbon dioxide which eliminates any possibility of cork taint and, when the wine is well cellared, they provide consistent evolution for every bottle. Elston ’14 will continue to develop in bottle for five years from harvest.
Technical Analysis
pH: 3.30
Total acidity as tartaric: 6.5g/l
Alcohol: 13.5%
Residual sugar: Dry
Winemaking
Each parcel was gently whole-cluster pressed, cold settled and racked to new and seasoned French oak barrels for fermentation. The resulting wines remained in contact with their yeast lees while undergoing malolactic fermentation. The finest lots were selected for further maturation, spending a total of eleven months in barrel. The finished wine was bottled in March 2015.
Vineyards
The superb quality of the 2014 vintage was immediately apparent in the fully ripe grapes that were hand-harvested from their separate, individual plots within Te Mata Estate’s vineyards between 3 and 13 March 2014.
Origin
Elston is named for Elston Hall in Nottinghamshire, the ancestral home of Charles Darwin’s family. Darwin’s ‘theory of natural selection’ forms the basis of modern evolutionary theory, the foundation of biology. The wyvern symbol of Elston Hall appears on the label.
Elston Chardonnay '14 - 'Bright, light yellow. Aromas of ripe peach and grapefruit are sexed up by an element of smokey oak car. Boasts lovely intensity and depth of fruit, with bright acidity framing the strong citrus fruit and vanilla oak flavors. Finishes bones-dry. lemony and classic. Te Mata has made this wine since 1984 but only since vintage 1995 has it undergone full malolactic fermentation. In fact, technical director Peter Cowley noted that the earlier, pre-malo vintages may have had longer aging potential.' 89+ pointsStephen Tanzer, Vinous, February 2016 All Reviews
