Tony Bish Zen Chardonnay 2020

Reviews

Sam Kim, Wine Orbit: 99/100. This is stunningly refined and poised, showing nectarine, fig, nougat, hazelnutand sweet pastry aromas on the nose. The palate displays exceptional weight and focus, combined with creamy texture and brilliantly pitched acidity, leading to a prolonged exquisite finish. Alluring and ethereal with layers of enticing flavours and textures. At its best: 2024 to 2034.

Cameron Douglas MS: 96/100 (Outstanding).  A very elegant, sophisticated and complex bouquet with aromas of pure, ripe new season stone fruits, some lees autolysis textures, flowers, a fine layer of grapefruit and apple. Fantastic on the palate, a silky-cream texture touches first, and lasts, contrasting acidity then core fruit flavours to reflect the boquuet fold in. Fine textures and layers of complexity from the ovum unfild as the wine opens up on the palate with a soft vanilla spice and sweet wood quality. Textures from the lees add complexity and breadth. A fantastic wine with excellent drinking from 2023 through 2033.

VINOUS - Rebecca Gibb MW: 96/100. The 2020 Zen is an intriguing and very complete Chardonnay. Grapes were handpicked from dry-farmed old-vine Mendoza vines, whole bunch pressed and delivered to a wooden egg to ferment. As a result, the fruit is glacier-pure and delicate. There's an almost Fino-like quality to this wine with its briny nature and lightly cooked apple fruit, coupled with a salty edge on the finish with clear lees-derived pastry-like accents that linger. That Mendoza clone character comes through on the finish with its razor-like tension, but it does not divide the wine; it sews the wine together and provides persistence. Intriguing, textural and rather left of center. Why can't more New Zealand Chardonnays be this damn good? Decanting recommended

Michael Cooper: 5 stars. ...a fragrant, complex bouquet. A rich, elegant wine, it is very ageworthy, with concentrated, ripe peach and grapefruit flavours, savoury and harmonious. Best drinking 2024+. (There is no 2021 or 2022.)

Tasting Note:

Expansive aroma of citrus rind, white flesh nectarine, lemon blossom, hazelnut, vanilla biscotti, and lemon meringue. Very intense entry onto the palate. Flavours of citrus rind, roasted nectarine along with fresh acidity, remarkable purity, and extraordinary length. There is a very fine silky texture, with great intensity on the finish. Purity, power, and grace.

Aromas and flavours:

Additional information

Type: White wine

Varietal: Chardonnay

Food match: smoked fish with egg and stone fruit

Winemaking: The distinctive Skeetfield Vineyard is home to old-vine, dry farmed Mendoza Chardonnay vines, producing wines of incredible flavour intensity. ZEN fruit was hand-picked and whole bunch pressed with the wine 100% fermented in an Ovum – a French oak, egg shaped vessel that forms rich flavours and textured wines thanks to the unique convection currents it produces. Tony Bish has created the first Chardonnays in the world to be produced from an Ovum. With no settling or any additions, the juice was allowed to ferment with indigenous, wild yeasts from the vineyard for 2 to 3 weeks, each yeast adding its own nuance to the complexity. After initial ferment, a natural malo-lactic fermentation took place with the wine left in the Ovum for 12 months allowing the yeast derived complexity to develop. It was then racked several times, able to be bottled without any fining or filtration, protecting vineyard character and integrity

About Ovum: is a large egg-shaped vessel made of Taransaud French oak that was christened Ovum. The yeast and natural tartrate crystals cling to the inner surface of the Ovum on the lower hemisphere, providing a massive surface area of yeast to wine interaction. Unique convection currents keep yeast in suspension, enhancing and accelerating the extraction of yeast cell wall goodies. Tony Bish Wines has the first Ovum in the Southern Hemisphere. The Tony Bish team states, that Tony has created the first Chardonnays in the world to be produced from an Ovum. There's far less oak influence in the Zen compared with Skeetfield.

Alcohol: 13% vol

Wine style: dry

Total acidity: 6.5 g/l

Bottle size: 0.75l

Notice: Contains sulfites.

Cellaring potential: 2029+

Closure: Screwcap

Produced and bottled by: Bish Wines Ltd., 3 Ossian Street, Ahuiri, 4110 Hawke's Bay, New Zealand

Imported and distributed by: vinabonus GmbH, Simmedenweg 40, 34134 Kassel, Germany

To all Chardonnay wines