WINE OF THE WEEK: Vergelegen Reserve Chardonnay 2024, Stellenbosch, South Africa
£17.80–£20, Waitrose Cellar, Vinvm, NY Wines, Lekker Wines, Frontier Fine Wines, Harrogate Fine Wine
This is both seriously good and a crowd pleaser, which isn’t always easy to achieve with Chardonnay. Seriously good sometimes means bringing out Chardonnay’s somewhat elusive austerity. Crowd pleasing can mean outgoing bright fruit and citrus freshness, usually with some loose-fitting oak but not always much more.
In only his second vintage at the iconic 326-year-old Vergelegen, winemaker Luke O’Cuinneagain has avoided the pitfalls and the easy options and produced a barrel-fermented Reserve Chardonnay 2024 with sleek lines and contained richness.
Preserved lemon infuses the sweeter, more floral fruit, and rock-pool mineral freshness cascades through lightly buttered toast and spiced cashew nut. The overall effect is, to use some overused words, harmonious, layered, refined and approachable.
The grapes are hand harvested from various soils around the Stellenbosch farm – some granitic, some shale, some alluvial. Fermentation, in the off-grid solar winery, is mostly whole-bunch, part of it spontaneous and part inoculated yeast. It takes place in oak barrels, as does partial malolactic fermentation with stirring of the lees, and 10 months' ageing follows in barrels of various types, sizes and toast levels.
There's no reason to resist the Vergelegen Reserve Chardonnay 2024 now, but you could put it away somewhere cool and dark and show it the light of day in five or even more years' time.
Whenever you drink it, there are plenty of dishes to enjoy alongside it. You could lay on the best of roast chickens or the freshest cod with herbs and lemon, or serve it up with dressed crab, creamy crab gratin or a luxury shellfish-rich fish pie. Mac ’n’ cheese, twice-baked cheese soufflé or cheese and onion tart would all do nicely, as would a few cheese straws, some truffle crisps or nothing at all. 13%. Empty bottle weight: 590g.
Vergelegen Reserve Chardonnay 2024, Stellenbosch, South Africa
£17.80–£20, Vinvm, NY Wines, Waitrose Cellar, Lekker Wines, Frontier Fine Wines, Harrogate Fine Wine
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