Larry McKenna loves a Chardonnay made in a fresh, crisp style with creamy texture but balanced by bright acidity, a medium to full body and a long finish. So, if big buttery Chardonnays are your thing, this wine will meet your hopes in a textural fashion. Which is another way of saying, try this great white made in a fresh style.

It's made from grapes grown on Te Muna Road, Martinborough, which were planted in 1999. The wine goes through malolactic fermentation with lees stirring to enhance texture and it aged for 11 months in French oak, 20% of it new.

A cracking sparkler from Marlborough's Cloudy Bay. This has more weight and fruit sweetness than the standard Pelorus thanks to a higher percentage Pinot and offers strawberry and biscuit elements on the nose and palate. 

94/100 Bob Campbell
“Reasonably deep copper colour. Full-flavoured wine with hints of biscuit and strawberry. Dry, but not austere, with a rich texture and lengthy finish. Classy sparkler with character.”

Powerful, full bodied, smooth and balanced by beautiful crisp citrus and white peach flavours. This is one of Hawke's Bay's great Chardonnays from Tony Bish, who has carved a niche for himself as king of Chardonnay in the Bay, where he devotes his winemaking talents entirely to Chardonnay. 

This wine is made from dry grown Mendoza Chardonnay grapes grown on Skeetfield Vineyard. All grapes in this wine were hand harvested and whole bunch pressed with minimal settling followed by 100% barrel, 100% indigenous yeast fermentation and matured for 12 months in Taransaud French oak. Lees stirring accentuates body, freshness and depth of flavour in this lovely wine.

If you like Chardonnay, you'll love this sparkling Hawke's Bay blancs de blancs made from  Alpha Domus winery. 

All of the grapes in this wine were hand picked, whole bunch pressed and fermented to bone dry (one gram of residual sugar). It was made from 26 year old Clone 6 Chardonnay vines grown at Bridge Pa in Hawke’s Bay and disgorged at Soljans in West Auckland, which has all the gear for making high end sparkling wine. 

This beautiful creamy, full bodied bubbly over delivers big time, showing yet again just how good New Zealand's best sparkling wines can be. 

One of Central Otago's best kept secrets - great whites made from Chardonnay, a grape that thrives in the deep south as this beauty shows. It's full bodied, dry and made from certified organic grapes grown at the Morrison Vineyard at Pisa; one of the most highly regarded sub regions for grape growing in Central Otago. 

Grapes were pressed straight to barrel for fermentation with native vineyard yeasts, entirely in older French oak with no new oak at all. The wine was then matured in the same barrels for a year. 

The result is a beautiful dry, richly textured, smooth and creamy Chardonnay balanced by great southern acidity which gives Central Otago a distinctive edge when producing the world's most popular white wine. 

The home and winery of Mount Edward is situated in Gibbston, 25 kilometres from Queenstown.  Vineyards are there, in Bannockburn and at PIsa. 

Stone Paddock Chardonnay is a lightly oaked wine. Showing ripe tropical fruit and peach aromas with fine grapefruit and mineral undertones. The gentle influence of oak accentuates the sweet stonefruit, melon and grapefruit flavours. The texture is creamy and luscious with a fine minerality on the finish. 

MiruMiru translates to sparkling in Maori and has been trademarked as the name of Jane Hunter's bubblies. Hunter is a fan of pink bubbly and her winemaking team produce this one mostly from Pinot Noir as 55% of the blend with the balance being 42% Chardonnay with a 3% touch of Pinot Meunier. This trio is the classic combination used in the Champagne region where wines must be aged for at least 18 months prior to release on the market. That?s the exact timeframe that Hunter?s winemaking team decided to age this lively, dry pink bubbles for too. It contains 6.4 grams of residual sugar per litre and is a deliciously full bodied expression of sparkling Pinot with Chardonnay adding crispness and balance. 

Member of Methode Marlborough 

Tony Bish's Golden Egg Chardonnay is one of the best in the country and  is fermented in an egg shaped concrete fermentation vat, which is designed to maximise the fullness and creamy style of Chardonnay at its smoothest, while retaining vibrant acidity. This is a stellar wine. One of the best from the Bay and from the country. Outstanding. 

Lovely crisp structure and fleshy mouthfeel from a superb Chablis producer in a wine that reveals white fruit notes such as peach, and has a persistent mineral structure. In the mouth, a stony sensation which is so typical of Chablis makes this a round and pure wine.

Chablis is the northernmost wine region in Burgundy, which produces only Chardonnay. The cooler climate gives these wines crispness, acidity and a flinty minerality.

Exceptional fruit purity, concentration and complexity are the hallmarks of this wine. The result is a concentrated, rich Chardonnay with good length, weight and texture showing nutty and citrus characters. 

- Elephant Hill 

Domaine Denis Race is a small, family run winery in Chablis. This Chardonnay uses no oak, resulting in a focused and linear wine. Steel ageing results in a very pure expression of terroir. The nose is fresh and mineral, with grassy and citrus notes. On the palate there is a textural richness, which is balanced by citrussy acidity and savoury minerality.

One of New Zealand's top five Chardonnays, in our view, and consistently outstanding, both on release and for the long haul in a dark, cool cellar. The next vintage of the great Pegasus Bay VIrtuoso Chardonnay is 2020 and the wine will be released during 2024; according to the winemaking team at family owned, Pegasus Bay Winery, they are tasting the wine regularly and will release it "When we feel it is at its optimum".  We look forward to sharing this great wine with you, our customers, when it arrives in. 

And in the meantime, for a powerful full bodied Chardonnay with all the bells and whistles, we await the next vintage of Virtuoso. 

The wine regularly spends 50% in new French oak. It's the top Chardonnay from Pegasus Bay winery in North Canterbury. Flavours span the range from candied citrusy acidity of lemons, ripe orange and a hint of mandarin and white peach. It's a blend of the tastiest barrels of Chardonnay each year and will continue to evolve beautifully for the next five to six years, potentially even longer. 

100% hand-picked Chardonnay, crushed and pressed into old Burgundian French oak barrels for wild yeast fermentation until dry. The wine was matured in barrel for 14-16 months during which time it underwent full malolactic fermentation.

This is a complex Chardonnay with multiple layers of ripe fruit and richness, along with a chalky minerality on the nose. The palate combines fruit weight and balanced acidity with a tight yet generous structure. This is followed by a long lingering pithy citrus finish with and hints of savouriness.

A small volume, high quality new Chardonnay from Marlborough, which is gaining huge traction with critics, both nationally and globally. 

What the critics say

BOB CAMPBELL MW

“Novum deserves to be on every wine lovers radar” 

JANCIS ROBINSON MW, UK

“Very smart nose fully vindicates my enthusiasm for NZ Chardonnay.

If only all white burgundy smelt this clean and compelling. Crystalline fruit. Good, medium weight of pure fruit that’s already intense but promises much more in the future. Long and complex. No playing around with reduction. A beautiful wine.”

95 Points, Cameron Douglas MS, NZ

"An intriguing almost sensual bouquet of Chardonnay. Aromas of red apple and sweet peach tea, lees spices and white flowers, flint and chalk-like minerality, and a light dusting of fragrant baking spices. Very sophisticated and quite pure on the palate - dry, complex, even and lengthy. A precise palate weight with a youthful acid line, extremely fine wood tannins and fine lees texture. Flavours of white and yellow orchard fruits, wood spices and fine stone-like minerality. A delicious example, modern, youthful, complex and intriguing. Lots to like. Drink now and through 2026."