2025 Saint Clair Omaka Reserve Chardonnay, Marlborough

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

The Omaka Reserve is a traditionally styled, rich and generous Chardonnay. Opening with heady stone fruit aromas, the voluptuously creamy palate blends golden peaches, sweet pastries and hazelnuts, with toasty oak notes contributing the bold style.

The Mendoza clone of Chardonnay is on full display in this fully flavoured wine that is ready to enjoy on release but would keep well in bottles over several years, a matter of preference. Best enjoyed with rich dishes of roasts pork or chicken and balance the creamy flavours in the wine with sides that feature brassicas, leek and the like.

More about this wine

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