Xanadu Releases Greatest Ever Chardonnays

With the advent of the great 2018 vintage, we are moving into a time of great grace and fortune: the premium releases from Margaret River are starting to roll in.  The 2018’s are worth waiting (and saving) for.  These two chardonnays from Xanadu are no exception to that rule: they exhibit power and poise on a momentous scale and are salivating examples of Margaret River chardonnay.   These are the best releases under the labels to date.  What a time to be alive.

2018 Xanadu Reserve Chardonnay

This presents all of the nuance and profile that I found in the Steven’s Road chardonnay, but everything here is dialled up.  This punches through walls and limits of flavour and gives accurate meaning to saturation, concentration and class.  What a wine.  Powerful, dense, rippling.

The characters that typify this wine and set it apart from many of the other wines in the area is its unwavering ability to present purity and finesse seamlessly alongside concentration and power.  It puts on display the full array of powerful fruit made available to it by the Gin Gin clone and unapologetically shows the spectrum of crushed and toasted cashew, ripe white stonefruit.  It’s the whoosh of salty brine and tight acidity through the finish that swoops in a tightens everything up.  The drawn-out finish is a lingering memory of something minerally, satisfying and powerful – the flavours slowly fading over time rather than morphing and changing tune.  This is an astounding wine and should it be resisted long enough, will cellar gracefully and magnificently for many years to come.

RRP $110

98/100

2018 Xanadu Steven’s Road Chardonnay

A fine, precise nose; this is all white stone fruit, sea salt, whiffs of exotic spice, and suggestions of green guava.  The texture is incredibly fine – almost slippery – and the flavours are incredibly long.  This is racy, too.  Scintillating.  And zero hard edges in this wine.  Very restrained and very cool.  Love this. 

RRP $85

97/100