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94POINTS
17½/20
CheckMate Artisanal Winery Queen's Advantage Chardonnay 2015
Golden Mile Bench, Oliver, Okanagan Valley, British Columbia, CanadaThe newest Checkmate chardonnay is Queen’s Advantage, a nod to the unknown clone that inhabits the winery’s estate plot, Combret Vineyard, thought to be among the oldest chardonnay vines in the country. The old gnarly vines, are deeply rooted into the Golden Mile Bench sub-GI, searching for the calcium carbonate coated stones buried deep into the rocky hillside site. The trick in 2015 was to battle the heat and stay on top the vineyard but that got a lot easier with the precision viticulture that has transformed these precious vines, limited their yield and allowed them to better express their superior site. The nose and palate will wow with a purity of floral fruit from lemons, tropical papaya and pears, washed in wet stones. It’s the layering of flavours that wow, as does the intensity and length of the finish. An outstanding effort in a difficult year. The fruit was hand-picked and fermented with 43 percent native yeast in barrel and it went through 100 malolactic fermentation with batônnage. The final wine was aged 16 months in French oak barrels, of which 48 percent were new. Production was eight barrels.Tasted: 19 December 2018Tasted by: Anthony GismondiPrices:| BC | $85.00 | 750ml | winery direct |
| BC | $190.00 | 1500ml | winery direct |
Grape: ChardonnayUPC: 776545801210
