2019 La Ferme de Sato ‘Le Chant du Vent’ Chardonnay Cult Wine

While we have featured the wines of Yoshiaki and Kyoko Sato in the past, the previous wines we’ve offered have all been négoce wines, that is to say wines made with bought fruit. Introducing Le Ferme de Sato aka Sato Farm. Purchased in 2015 and planted in 2016 these are wines made from young vines but are nevertheless exceptional, Le Chant du Vent translates to ‘the sound of the wind’ and is evocative of this rich but etherial Chardonnay which was pressed overnight and aged for 17 months in old barrels before being bottled with minimal added sulphur. Its an intensely mineral expression of Central Otago Chardonnay made for the cellar. It is exceptional.

“A similar nose to the Chenin Blanc initially, oxidative honeyed spice and ripe nectarine; it settles slowly into a more nuanced, mineral-inflected expression with white pepper and floral high tones leading to a surprisingly fresh and clean river stone, clove/cinnamon apple undertow which frames and defines the wilder notes above. The palate has tension from the outset which gives way to mouth-filling full-bodied mid. There is evidence of fruit restraint, but the back-palate is currently reticent and unyielding. As a result, it is front-palate dominant at present. The texture is grainy, if slightly on the warm side of alcohol, but there is plenty of material here to pad out the palate as it settles into its skin in bottle. As it breathes, more delineation appears on the nose and the palate also starts to take on more of a line from start to finish..” – Stephen Wong MW