McHenry Hohnen Calgardup Brook Vineyard Chardonnay (Organic) 2018 ~ Margaret River, Western Australia

95/100 Campbell Mattinson
91/100 Decanter World Wine Awards
97/100 - Top Chardonnay Halliday Wine Companion Awards 2023 (2020 vintage)
95/100 The Wine Front (2017 vintage)
93/100 James Suckling (2017 vintage)
94/100 The Wine Front (2016 vintage)
94/11 Decanter World Wine Awards (2015 vintage)
97/100 The Real Review (2015 vintage)
96/100 The West Australian Wine Guide 2017 (2015 vintage)
95/100 James Halliday Wine Companion 2017 (2014 vintage)
93/100 The Real Review (2014 vintage)

Bronze - Royal Melbourne Wine Awards 2019
Bronze - 2019 Langton's Margaret River Wine Show
Silver - Wine Show of Western Australia 2019

5-star Winery – Halliday Wine Companion

Halliday's Wine Companion Awards 2023 - Top Wineries of 2022 & 2023

Organic

Campbell Mattinson “Elegant power is a good way to describe it. It's flinty but not too much so, fleshed with stone fruit, touched up with meal and green apple, and intricately complex to close. All the while sweet fruit flows. It's an easy wine to get excited over.”

Decanter “Soft and creamy, with intense lemon curd augmenting baking spice, green pineapple and mango skin. Packed and phenolic, with freshness and length.”

The Winemaker “The nose opens with notes of oyster shell, frangipani and sea spray with delicate nashi pear pulp and nectarine. Wild fermentation with full solids provides flinty complexity and extended time on lees adds intrigue and excellent length to the palate. A distinctive saline acidity and attractive chalk-like structure complement the mineral nature of this unique Southern Margaret River vineyard near the Indian Ocean.”

Halliday Wine Companion Awards 2023, Erin Larkin "Fruit from the Calgardup Brook vineyard (planted 1997) on coastal limestone loam. All single-vineyard chardonnays are made in the same way here, highlighting the differences in terroir: Hand picked, whole-bunch pressed, full solids, wild ferment in barrel (25% new) and 4 months' maturation, partial mlf, fortnightly bâtonnage. Where the Burnside is granitic, mineral and fine, this is pithy, saline and expansive, with layers of cheesecloth and lanolin amongst the ripe stone fruit. More volume and density of flavour than the Burnside (neither here nor there qualitatively, simply an observation), this is sensational. Utterly." (2020 vintage)

Mike Bennie, The Wine Front "Far out. How good are McHenry Hohnen wines getting? And quite diverse in their feel compared to most from the region. Stellar. Lots of battonage, lots of lees, “I’m just obsessed with flavour” says winemaker Julian Grounds. Righteous. So much to like here. A quietly powerful, detailed chardonnay that shows with citrus, green apple, lashings of ‘mineral’, faint toast and whiffs of peanut/cashew. The palate follows a similar route, powerful in flavour but not stretching the palate with oomph, instead, precise, tight, true and long. Scintillating stuff here." (2017 Vintage)

Nick Butler, The Real Review "An attractive mix of white stone fruits, citrus rind and classy oak. It's creamy on the front palate, which dives into a tart lemon and lime acidity. Bright, fresh and balanced; it's a lovely wine, though lacking the core and fruit weight of warmer ripening seasons." (2017 Vintage)

Nick Stock, James Suckling "Quite savory and elegant chardonnay with aromas of fresh pastry and dry stones, as well as white melon and light peach. The palate has sleek, elegantly cut style with melon and peach here, too, Very crisp, long and elegant. Drink or hold. Screw cap." (2017 Vintage)

Gary Walsh, The Wine Front "White peach, mint nougat, subtle spice, stones and struck match. Medium bodied, cool and flinty, beautiful fine acidity, citrus and a suggestion of lemon curd, with a tight long lemon-laced finish. Great bone structure here, and a fine and exciting wine to drink." (2016 Vintage)

Nick Ryan, The Australian "The coolest of the three sites, feeling the force of the ocean breezes and planted on coastal sand. It shows. The wine is lean, tight and linear, smells of sea spray and the pith of preserved lemons, and hums with a fine, flinty acidity. For now, my pick of the three." (2016 Vintage)

Peter Forrestal, Decanter "Sourced from an estate vineyard in the region's cool south near Witchcliffe, this has restrained power and tightly coiled grapefruit and citrus flavours, before a mouth-puckering finish that lingers." (2015 Vintage)

Ray Jordan, The West Australian Wine Guide 2017 "Another superb wine from this vineyard which always seems to to produce wines of such delicate finesse and fineness. This is right on the money but still with an intensity and persistence that stamps the chardonnay style. The best yet from this vineyard." (2015 Vintage)

Mike Bennie, The Wine Front " We’ve all known that McHenry Hohnen has been a bit of a secret weapon for terrific (chardonnay particularly) Margaret River wines, but with their shift to biodynamic farming and now a new winemaker in Julian Grounds, hold onto your hats. Grounds has done his time at Giant Steps with Steve Flamsteed, and has papal blessings from Flamsteed in this new role. Indeed, word on the street is, many, many people are thrilled for this move. A touch of high end Yarra hits Margs. Nice one. Grounds in his early days has already reached out to say gday, personally, unprompted it felt, which says something about determination and intent. Stay tuned.

Complex bouquet shows stone fruit, green apple, faint flint/struck match, whiff of grilled nuts, faint fern character. Pitch perfect delicate. More assertive to taste with a flood of green apple, savoury oatmeal and nuttiness, gentle cedar spice, cool acidity. Even flow, superb balance, elegance. It’s very, very good, seamless, supple chardonnay. Classic. " (2015 Vintage)

James Halliday "The Calgardup Brook Vineyard lies just inland from the coast, with well weathered sandy, schisty soils; hand-picked, whole bunch-pressed to French oak (20% new), wild-fermented, no mlf, aged on lees. Lemon meringue is a great call for the bouquet, some spice also in the action; elegant white peach flavours give way to bouncy grapefruit zest on the well balanced and long finish." (2014 Vintage)

Huon Hooke, The Real Review "Light, bright yellow hue and a lifted ethyl acetate aroma, the volatility confirmed by the palate. It has issues. Most drinkers would not identify them, but the VA (volatile acidity) did inhibit the flavour and aroma. Extraordinarily, though, the longer this wine was exposed to the air, the better it tasted. Food (Comte cheese) also helped tame the beast. It soon became delicious. Very dry, nicely concentrated flavour and acidity, layers of complex aromas and flavours, good oak and 'worked' lees characters. A very good wine indeed. Wild ferment VA is forgiven." (2014 Vintage)

James Halliday "Whole bunch-pressed, wild yeast-fermented, matured in French barriques (20% new) with lees contact. Is very focused and tight, its flavours wound up in a ball of fruit, with generic white stone fruit and melon lurking in the shadows." (2013 Vintage)

Huon Hooke, The Real Review "Medium to full straw-yellow hue. The bouquet is toasty and lightly smoky, attractive and quite complex, with richness and concentration, depth and weight. Indeed, it's an opulent style, full-bodied and generously proportioned. The finish is very long and resonant, partly due to the heat from apparently high alcohol. (it certainly seems higher than the stated 13.5%) This needs food and would cope with strongly flavoured white meat dishes." (2013 Vintage)

James Halliday Wine Companion 2014 "This has the lightest colour of the three, here the soils, just inland from the coast, are sandy and schisty, and well weathered; it is the most intense and elegant, with white stone fruit and grapefruit at its core." (2012 Vintage)

James Halliday Wine Companion 2012 "Bright straw-green; the faintly funky bouquet is complex, an appropriate introduction for a palate with layers of flavour of white peach and fig/cashew ex partial mlf, before glorious grapefruit acidity takes over and drives the wine through to its lingering, pure finish." (2009 Vintage)

McHenry Hohnen was founded by one of the pioneers of the Margaret River winemaking region, David Hohnen and his brother in law, Murray McHenry, an accomplished fine wine retailer. Both have been making wine in Margaret River since the early 1970’s. McHenry Hohnen vineyards are 100% biodynamic. Their three unique vineyards (Burnside, Calgardup and Hazel’s) produce wines that are a reflection of the land. McHenry Hohnen focuses on crafting site-expressive wines and are known for producing some of the region's best wines.

Margaret River is one of the best-known wine regions in Australia, recognized internationally for the quality of its wines and the natural beauty of the region. Although originally renowned for its unusually refined Cabernet Sauvignon and intensely citrusy Chardonnay varieties, the region now produces Semillon Sauvignon Blanc blends and Shiraz.

Located in the south-western corner of Western Australia, it is famous for having a more 'European' wine style than its counterparts across Australia, owing to the regions temperate, coastal location, which is very similar to that of Bordeaux.

Chardonnay is one of the world’s most popular grapes. Chardonnay is made in a wide range of styles from lean to rich, creamy white wines aged in oak. Bolder, richer, full-bodied and buttery Chardonnays are made using oak and are produced in California, Burgundy, and Australia. Unoaked chardonnays such as Chablis and those produced in Chile, New Zealand, and other parts of France are leaner and often crisp and mineraly, with delicate flavors. By law, if a label says “Chablis,” it must be Chardonnay.