TN: LEAS Chardonnay 1984-2008 vertical 7/3/11

[n4sir]

It's not often that such a large vertical of one of Australia's most prized wines can be tried in one shot, so I was pretty lucky to get to this tasting last week. By the end of it all I came to the impression that only the very best vintages age gracefully with similar characters to Giaconda, and even some Burgundy for that matter. The others begin with a blaze of glory in their first year or so from release, change as rapidly at around the five-year mark, and hang for grim life after that. These remind me of Jamie Sach's comment '“chardonnay doesn't get better with age, it just gets older". The classic vintages defy this comment, for the rest I think it's pretty accurate.

2008 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (screwcap): Very pale straw/green. Still a little sulphur there, but the nose is tight and elegant, revealing whiffs of sweet cashew and melon, a little peach and grass with breathing; a slippery entry of melon leads to a very rich, creamy palate full of bright tropical fruit, finishing very long and fruit sweet. It's a little unusual that such a young wine opening the tasting was my WOTN; a very promising vintage to say the least, and only 13.5% alc according to what was said on the night.

2007 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (screwcap): Very pale straw/green. A toasty nose with cashew and stonefruit, flint and mineral, then melon with breathing with a strange, slightly fishy character too. A sweet entry of peach leads to a mid-palate packed with melon, cashew/toasty oak and more obvious acid than the 2008 vintage, finishing with very noticeable heat (14.5% alc).

2006 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (screwcap): Very pale straw/green. Despite a similar colour to the two younger vintages this was showing a lot more age on the nose, a little fishy with cinnamon toast, nutmeg and buttery characters; the palate's leaner too, very toasty with bright stonefruit and equally obvious acid, finishing with French vanilla and some bacon. It's still attractive but its apparent accelerated development in just over a year is a shock; was this a dud bottle, or is it already at or just past its peak?

2005 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (screwcap): Very pale straw/green. Looks very young and fresh, back to the form of the 2008 vintage, tight, mineraly and very flinty with limes and melon; the palate's just as fresh and fruity, full of tropical fruits and creamy marzipan, finishing very long with smoky cashew and French vanilla. There's a little warmth with breathing (14.5% alc) that drops it a fraction behind the 2008 on my scoresheet, but it's easily the best of the other vintages from the naughties.

2004 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (screwcap): Medium yellow/green, a (perhaps surprisingly) rapid colour change from the later vintages. Very fat and developed, lanolin/wool carpet, grapefruit and mineral water characters; the palate's lemony and buttery, the mid-palate spicy and toasty with bright, piercing acidity, finishing with smoky/citrus characters. This bottle showed a heck of a lot more age than one at an offline eighteen months ago; on this form I can't see this improving; I can also begin to see a bit of a pattern emerging at this vertical...

2003 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (screwcap): Medium yellow/green. I've never really been a fan of this wine, and sure enough the nose is full of over the top vanilla oak, a little wool carpet with breathing; likewise the palate's relatively lean, what's there is again dominated by toasty/vanilla oak, finishing spicy and sweet but also a little hot.

2001 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Medium yellow/green. The wine has an amazing buttery/milky nose, amazing because apparently there is absolutely no malolactic practices at play; the palate is softer, rounder and fatter than the 2003 vintage, still full of milky/buttery characters. It's still a rather short, underwhelming wine, and has seen better days in my opinion.

2000 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Bright gold. Heavily sherried, developed nose, a little caramel in the distance; not surprisingly the palate's just as heavily oxidised, with the barest remnants of lemon/cough drop fruit and malty oak. It's hard to know whether to pin this one on the cork, or the wine's just too old.

1999 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Bright yellow. Immediately identifiable as one of the best wines of the nineties, there's still sweet melon fruit that's lifted by the barest whiff of VA, some wool carpet, then lanolin as it becomes more perfumed, then mineral and struck flint. The palate's tight and spicy, elegant and mineraly, slightly smoky too, toasty lemon and then grapefruit, later some melon to matching the bright acidity, finishing with excellent length.

1998 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Medium to dark gold. The nose is scalped, very damp and earthy and obviously faulty; the palate suggests if it wasn't corked it was probably oxidised anyway, being very pithy/acidic and dried out.

1997 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Bright yellow. Spicy and fully developed, French vanilla and toast, the bright acid is on the obvious side and the finish is lean and spicy, although there are also some vague but attractive hazelnut characters. Right at the end of its drinkable life.

1996 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Very dark yellow. Heavily aged and drifting into the curio category now, the smoky French vanilla becoming sherried in a slightly attractive way, a little amontillado-like; a buttery entry leads to a palate of glaceed/dried citrus and hazelnut, again very dry and on the sherried side. This had a few fans that were surprised and thought it would be completely dead by now; for my tastes it didn't have enough of a pulse to be anything to rave about.

1995 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Bright yellow. Coming after a couple of overly developed wines this was throwback to some of the younger, superior wines, the nose toasty with wool carpet, cashew and grapefruit, a little oily at times too. The palate's just as fresh and lively, with bright, lemony fruit and French vanilla, some melon with breathing and hazelnut on the finish. A classic wine in the same vein as the 1999, 2005 & 2008 vintages.

1994 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Medium yellow, fractionally darker than the previous wine. The bouquet was surprisingly very closed, only letting out whiffs of mineral, but the palate was an even bigger surprise, very sweet and soft with bight pineapple fruit and excellent weight and balance. Very different to the 1995 vintage yet still just as alive; a very interesting, looser-knit contrast to the “classic" vintages that's still holding up well.

1991 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Dark yellow. Well past its best, sherried and caramelised, little remnants of citrus and hazelnut making it almost drinkable; another wine that's a curio at best.

1989 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Very dark yellow. The nose has a lot of bite and acidity to go with the hazelnut and mineral characters; a creamy entry leads to a lean palate with hazelnuts and slightly sherried grapefruit characters, the piercing acidity sticking out mid-palate and on the finish. Drinkable, but past its best.

1988 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Medium yellow. Another fresher wine that's a little more developed than the 1995 vintage, the bouquet full of wool carpet, hazelnut, bright lemon and cashew; a bright, lemony entry leads to an equally bright and slightly milky/buttery mid-palate, and a slender finish. For what was predicted to be an earlier developing vintage this has held up remarkably well, although it has nowhere to go but down from this point.

1987 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Medium yellow, brighter than the previous wine. The nose is a disappointment, damp with strange fishy, funky, tangy and mouldy characters; the palate is a little better and gives a clue to what the wine could have been like, the bright lemony fruit and powerful structure's there, but there's still those weird fishy/mouldy characters and the finish is scalped. This headline wine with its blockbuster reputation was let down by its cork, reminiscent of the scene of Marlon Brando from On the Waterfront saying “I coulda been a contender". What a pity.

1984 Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, Margaret River (cork): Medium yellow. Another wine well past its best, heavily sherried/fino like green olive and paint stripper characters, and a dried out palate. One for the necrophiliacs.


Cheers
Ian

[Craig(NZ)]

nice notes thanks.

i remember the contrast between the 1999 which I had 2 or 3 years ago which was stunning and the disappointing 2002 I had a couple of months ago. yet to be convinced of any reason to keep a new world chardonnay more than 5 years in the cellar. yes they change, yes some hang on but really do any improve?

[dlo]

Another hurculean effort, Ian. Always grateful for the efforts you go to to keep us posted on what you see, smell and taste.

To say I'm not much of a fan of Leeuwin Estate AS Chardonnay these days is something that does not sit well. In the early- to late-eighties, under the stewardship of Bob Cartwright, Leeuwin Estate so richly deserved the accolades of this bar-setting, world-class Margaret River Chardonnay. They were brilliant young and stayed that way for up to twenty (plus) years as evidenced by my many experiences with the 1982, 1983, 1985 (was great young but went "cabbagey" too soon), 1986, 1987 (all cork and storage issues aside). For sometime thereafter things in the bottle seemed to change, and, in the main, not to my liking. Occasional vintages have "done it" for me at times (2002 as a youngster was postively brilliant - premox bottles galore now), but, in the main, the disappointments kept mounting and that early consistency I noted above just didn't seem to be there. I remember visiting Bob for the first time circa 1988. His personalised tour of the winery/restaurant facility and subterranean winemaking/barrel storage facilities was just fantastic. He told me of the lengths he would go to source the very best new oak barrels (from Seguin Moreau, IIRC) and the care/expertise he and his staff executed in "bringing up" their flagship wine. I'd be fairly confident that same "attitude" applies at Leeuwin today, but whether due the effects of climate change, hence "more alcohol", and an associated desire to go "oakier" to "balance" the equation, up until reading Ian's report, I've little confidence to buy or cellar this label today. Leeuwin, to my way of thinking, have, in the main, not rivalled the quality and consistency of what was made back in the eighties.

The good (hopefully, great) news from Ian's vertical, is that the winery has produced something special in 2008, that "kinda" reminds me of the 1982 AS as a new release. The alcohol level has been dragged back. And it is sealed in a screw cap. My first taste and sample of the 2005 also gave me great hope. Subsequent bottles (5 to be precise) were all about (too much) oak and alcohol. Perhaps I didn't give it enough time? On the strength of this report, I'll buy a bottle of 2008 and give this iconic label another chance.

[Craig(NZ)]

The 2005 LEAS was a super wine, it really wowed us at the last transtasman blind chardonnay taste off we had. Awesome uniaque flavours. I am a big fan of aussies top chardonnays. I stick up for Yattarna, I have enjoyed LEAS, tried Giaconda, Pierro, Rosemount Roxy, etc etc etc.

Of note though, in comparative tastings both blind and not blind Neudorf from NZ always seems to have the better of it even if just marginally. Of further note the price of Aussie Chardonnay is way over the top compared to NZ's classics. Most NZ classics are $35-55. You need $80+ to start playing with the Aussie big guns

[Michael R]

Yes, awesome notes Ian, thank you.
Given the current cost of some of those vintages, that's potentially saved me alot of pain.

1984.....One for the necrophiliacs

priceless...

[Geoff]

Just poured a '96 down the sink last night, quite brown and disappointing after a '95 a few months back that was actually in pretty good shape. I'm worried my other '96 is in the same shape, a good friend doesn't think the LEAS are good for the long haul, I had hoped otherwise.

[Attila]

No, 2004 didn't do it for me. Yes, 2005 is superb. Based on your notes, 2008 should also be fabulous. I'll check it out.