2024 Saint Clair Omaka Reserve Chardonnay, Marlborough

An enticing bouquet and palate with flavours of fresh white peach and lemon, some fruit pith and spices from fruit and wood woven through. I love the texture and length, core fruit flavours that repeat, weight and length. A delicious wine that reflects the site and excellent wine making. Best drinking from 2025 through 2030+.

94 points Cameron Douglas MS, November 2025

Toasty oak and flinty minerality add contours to this otherwise voluptuously generous, buttery style of chardonnay with sweet coconut oak. The mid-weight stone-fruit flavours are sappy and concentrated, providing a core of richness for the sweet oak to hang off. Approachable now, this will become nuttier and more savoury with time in bottle. Drink to 2032.

91 points Stephen Wong MW for The Real Review, December 2025

The Reserve wines from Saint Clair represent a tiny part of the annual production. These premium wines showcase exceptional parcels of fruit, with concentrated fruit flavours and potential for cellaring.

The fruit for this Omaka Reserve Chardonnay was sourced mostly from Saint Clair’s estate vineyards in Marlborough’s Omaka Valley, and is a blend of various clones, with Mendoza and 95 being the most important ones. Each parcel of the vineyard was harvested as it matured, with the fruit whole bunch pressed and fermented with a selected yeast in a combination of French and American oak barrels, of which seventeen percent were new. The wine matured for nine months with regular stirring of the lees before each barrel was assessed ahead of decisions on the final blend.

About this producer

Saint Clair Family Estate was established in 1994 by Neal and Judy Ibbotson, with their children Sarina, Tony and Julie today involved in all aspects of the operations. The family farms a substantial 160 of vineyards, and sources fruit through an extensive network of contract growers. Marlborough and its subregions have been the focus from the beginning, while smaller amount of premium red wines is made from fruit grown in the Gimblett Gravels area of Hawke’s Bay. Stewart Maclenann and Kyle Thompson are the current leaders of the winery team that each vintage creates an impressively broad line-up of wines.