A tasting with the South African Chardonnay Association in London
– London, United Kingdom May 2025
– Author: Jamie Goode
Website: https://chardonnayassociationsouthafrica.com/
The Chardonnay Association of South Africa is a re-born organisation with the aim to market Chardonnay internationally, and in this tasting held at High Timber in May 2025 we pitted 23 South African Chardonnays against 12 international Chardonnays. How did the tasting work? We tasted a pair of wines blind and then there was a reveal, and this repeated a number of times until we’d done all the wines.
These are my notes and scores as written blind, with some supplementary details about the wines added later.
This was an interesting set of wines. There were some famous South African names missing, but the ones that were included all did well. The consistency of quality was amazing. And it’s clear from my scores that at least I thought that the South African Chardonnays were completely in their peer group, showing really well. This is undoubtedly a strong category for South Africa.
Whalehaven Seascape Reserve Chardonnay 2024 Upper Hemel-en-Aarde, South Africa
12% alcohokl. Made by Richard Kershaw. This is weighty but fresh with lovely acidity. This is precise with good citrus drive and some richer pear notes. Juicy and alert, with purity and keen acidity. Linear, stylish. 95/100
