Storm Wines

Chardonnay, Ridge, Hemel en Aarde, 2022

Name: Chardonnay, Ridge, Hemel en Aarde
Brand: Storm Wines

93/100

Vinous

Available Vintages

all 2023 2024

delivery

in bond

Justerini & Brooks Tasting note

Floral and citrusy with a tangerine and fresh peach finish. Silky and polished but moreish too. The whites are pressed quite hard to add a little grip to the wine, ensuring they are not too sweet and easy. A delicious, low alcohol Chardonnay that delivers from the off. Ridge Chardonnay comes from a high-density vineyard on a cool, eastern slope on the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge with low-vigour, stony, clay-rich Bokkeveld shale soil. Ageing took place 25% new French barrique over 11 months. Since 2022, all wines are closed with DIAM corks.

delivery information

GUARANTEED PROVENANCE

Provenance in fine wine

When it comes to purchasing wine, provenance is of utmost importance. A wine’s history – where it’s sourced from and how it’s been stored – can have an enormous influence on the eventual enjoyment it provides. At Justerini & Brooks, we can trace nearly every case back to the domaine, estate or Château it originally came from; we ship from over 200 wine producers throughout the world.

Wines not bought directly from the vineyard are either sourced from trusted suppliers, with whom we share the same philosophy and rigour in buying, or from our own network of Cellarers customers. These customers’ wines are stored in optimal conditions in Octavian Corsham and, in the vast majority of cases, have been stored by us since the wine was first shipped. We do not purchase wine from auctions.

We feel it is equally important to for our customers that the case they buy and leave in storage with us is exactly the same case they subsequently have delivered. This may sound obvious and straightforward, yet we are one of very few merchants to have taken measures to ensure this.

We have created a system where every case is independent, thereby ensuring a trail of ownership and peace of mind for every customer.

The Journey

Justerinis ensures that every case of wine stored with Cellarers (Wines) Ltd has a unique identifier and customer’s name, almost unheard of in the industry as it is expensive to administer. These details are printed and placed on every case which is logged and recorded under your account name and kept in the world’s most renowned storage facility, Octavian Corsham.

This information is sent from our systems to the warehouse every day to ensure the trail of ownership is verified and upheld.

While customer reserves are stored in Corsham, our physical stocks are kept in Hoddesdon, further providing a geographical separation between customers’ wines with Cellarers and Justerinis’ own stock.

Further Reassurance

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is a legally separate limited company from Justerini & Brooks which currently holds approximately £450 million worth of customer reserves. It is fully insured to catastrophic loss. Many merchants will state that wine in their care is fully insured, but in reality this is on an individual case basis with insufficient cover for total loss as this is prohibitively expensive. The cover provided by Octavian and Justerini & Brooks is unmatched.

Cellarers (Wines) Ltd is audited by PwC every year.

Critic Reviews

93/100

Neal Martin,

Vinous

The 2022 Chardonnay Ridge was picked three weeks later than the Vrede Chardonnay as it is a cooler vineyard site. It undergoes 5 hours of skin contact and is raised 10% in clay amphora, the rest in French barrels, 32% new. The seductive bouquet of white chocolate and chai tea infuses the dried honey and almond aromas. The oak is neatly integrated here. The well-balanced palate has a fine bead of acidity, more linear than the Vrede, tensile with good extract on the waxy-textured finish.

drinking window 2024 - 2040

date of review 11/2023

product details

Specifications

Country:

South Africa

Region:

Western Cape

Appellation:

Hemel en Aarde Valley

Producer:

Storm Wines

style:

White Wine

Grape Variety:

Chardonnay

abv:

13.5%

allergen information

This product may contain sulphites. Full allergen information is available upon request, please call our Customer Relations Team on +44 (0)20 7484 6430.