Tonight's definitely a night for celebrating! ok, its 12.30am in the night and I've got work tomorrow, but definitely its a worthwhile to open a superb bottle of wine to have a few glasses (Or the whole bottle!) by myself! Tonight's victim is from my favorite Haut Espoir winery, their signature CHARDONNAY Reserve 2005. The 2004 was a beautiful example of a New world Chardonnay; lovely fruits, amazing balance between acids and oak...so this new 2005 vintage has a lot to live up to!

This Chardonnay is very well thought of, the grapes were handpicked early during the harvest to preserve its green fruit characters, oaked 12 months in 2nd fill Fench oak barrels to ensure that it is a balanced wine, not overly oaked and partial malolactic fermentation to give it some mellow characters...ok it sounds real good when i'm describing it, so down the hatch it goes!

APPEARANCE

A vibrant light gold color with clear rims and near transparent clarity.

NOSE

the first impression is fresh green pear with subtle gummy jelly drops followed by preserved pineapple slices. There's a layer of milky mushmellow and a thin layer of fresh macadamia nut oil.

PALATE

Surprisingly medium body for its strong aromas, lively filling grapefruit acids fill the mouth. There' a good balance of light oak and good fruits.

EVOLUTION/CONCLUSION

Drink when its warmer at 12-15 degrees...my god it gets tastier at that temperature..An excellent wine that will go beautifully with cream based sauce fish and pasta dishes. Its still very young for its 2005 vintage which holds promises of great maturity in 1-2 years time. Its quite lucky i got a case for myself, but to those who wants it, i still have some left to sell *Wink*

Cheers and good night!