Leeuwin Estate is one of the founding wineries of the now famous Margaret River district.
 
In 1972, legendary Napa Valley winemaker, Robert Mondavi, first identified the future site of the Leeuwin vineyard as being ideal for the production of premium wine and provided early mentorship to Denis and Tricia Horgan who founded Leeuwin Estate in 1974. The initial vineyards were planted by hand over a five year period from 1975. Maintaining a team of highly skilled and dedicated winemakers, Leeuwin Estate is now under the direction of two generations of the founding family.

In many ways the most Burgundian of any of the Leeuwin releases, this will rank up there with the best to date. There’s a waxy light mealy aroma which picks up nuances of limestone and spice with a trace of grapefruit. But it is the palate that really distinguishes it. There is an austerity with the minerally chalky feel that cuts through the fruit extending to a finish of extraordinary length. Precision and focus harness a wine of great power and poise before dry savoury edges lift the finish. Date: March 2022; Drink: 2024-2038; Price: $138.00; Rating: 99 Points; Ray Jordan; Wine Pilot

A very good vintage for Chardonnay was 2019. Pear, lemon oil, grapefruit, ginger, cinnamon and cedar oak, with a distinctly savoury sort of hazelnut character, along with some vanilla and white flower perfume. It’s tight, powerful, saline and precise, with a firm flintiness to texture, quite chalky, and superb spicy length and an almost umami aftertaste. I’m thinking grapefruits and biscuits, grilled nuts, even citrus zest. And for all its power and oak, it keeps itself racy and refined. It’s a cracking release. Alcohol: 13.5%; Closure: Screwcap; Drink: 2025-2032+; Rated: 97 Points; Gary Walsh; The Wine Front

Leeuwin Art Series Chardonnay on release is an achingly painful thing to drink, because once you've known the utter pleasure these wines bring at 5 or more years of age, it becomes a mess of cognitive dissonance to drink them so young. They are closed, taut, coiled, but more than anything, populated by rippling fruit that undulates untold through the interminably long finish. They typically don't reveal their kaleidoscopic spice and prismatic fruit flavour until a little further down the track. So, all I can humbly do here, is place the vintage in context. Through the lens of the cool year, this glitters with a purity and finesse that is deeply attractive. Aligned in style with the 2017. Drink to: 2042; Price: $138.00; Date Tasted: Jan 2022; Alcohol: 13.5%; Rating: 98 Points & Special Value Star; Erin Larkin; James Halliday Wine Companion