2010 CHOA Chardonnay, VQA blend, Karlos Estates

 This wine is my parent’s favourite wine and it was a gift from them. Given the $25 price point I was planning to save it for a special occasion, but what is better and more special than a night with P? I should warn you that this is a serious wine-drinkers wine, and that there was a lot going on in this bottle. Our choice to consume it on its own was probably ill-advised but we plowed ahead and made a nice night of it. My advice would be to savour this wine in small amounts and with food, because there is a lot going on and it would be easy to get overwhelmed! Perhaps if you were going to Christmas with your partner's wine connoisseur parents this would be a good choice as it says "I know you like wine and think you are savvy, because this one is complex" but also "I know we will be eating turkey so brought chardonnay."

P – This wine has a very intense smell, that is very winey, both oaky and grapey. It has a very strong typically chardonnay taste to it as well [editor’s aside: we learnt at our wine party a lot of people don’t like the taste of a chardonnay, so if that is you, steer clear!]. It also has a very alcoholy taste to it, maybe created by the wood flavourings. The tastes are very present and this is not a subtle wine. I couldn’t drink a lot of this wine because it was too dry and oaky for my tastes.

A – This wine tastes quite strongly like dried fruits and almost vanilla-y. It also has an aftertaste of alcohol that is quite tart. This is a very serious wine, and having tasted it I am not sure that I have the skills to do justice to everything that is going on in this wine in one review. It is not as woody as you would expect. The woody taste does not become subtle as it breathes. The varied ageing helps cut down a little on the oakyness, without making it disappear. It is also a pretty dry wine that makes your face pucker a little. It gets softer as it sits out and the vanilla and fruit taste becomes more prominent. It also becomes less alcoholy.  It is a light wine that is not as syrupy as I expected it to be from the deep yellow colour it had, which was almost like amber. This is not a sipping wine necessarily, I think I would drink this with food, perhaps a chicken dish with a creamy gravy, like a pot pie, or a dessert that was spicy yet sweet, like an apple pie.