Horseshoe Vineyard, Chardonnay, 2023
The Horseshow Chardonnay possesses more breadth and complexity with hints of peach, nuts, citrus, vanilla and yellow plum. Quietly explosive and powerful, this fans out then tapers in, a calm expansive wine with a neat, controlled finish. There’s so much energy here, which only reveals itself clearly on the finish, with its thrilling. very salty, peacocks’ tail. Magnificent. Broad, perhaps not as thrilling as the Alpine on this showing, but there is so much material here – a wonderful breadth of fruit and florality, culminating with long citrus and saline flavours.
critic reviews
The 2023 Chardonnay Horseshoe Vineyard has real attitude. It’s so phenolic, chewy and salty, a wine that channels all the intense power of this terroir. The 2023 is all about cut and drive, seeming as if it were chiseled from stone, but there’s also a beguiling underlying richness that grows more prominent in the glass. Fruit is pushed all the way to the background, but that’s not surprising for a Horseshoe Chardonnay in its early days. Brisk and racy, this precocious young wine will need at least a few years to begin to reveal its charms, but your patience will be rewarded.
The most powerful of the Chardonnays is the 2023 Chardonnay Horseshoe Vineyard, which confidently emphasizes its textural power while maintaining finesse and nuance. The bouquet features a round, stone-fruit and nougat-like richness, complemented by dried white flowers and citrus-driven energy, leading to a sleek, tense, silky and rich palate. The finish is the slowest and most concentrated among the Chardonnay selections, perfectly balancing high-toned energy with a deep, high-fidelity richness and a persistent salinity, with less overt mineral character than the Mt Pajaro bottling.