Nocturne Wines
Single Vineyard Series
2022 Margaret River
Chardonnay
Winemaker’s notes
Chard noc
Notes
Flint, funk, pure citrus & verve...lots of verve
SINGLE VINEYARD
Forrest Vineyard
Reviews
  • Erin Larkin from The Wine Advocate. 96+ pts
    This 2022 leads with gentle reduction, flinty complexity and loads of acid and fruit in the mouth. This abundantly composed, vigorously svelte and polished while being authentic. You get salted peach, persevered citrus, jasmine tea, star anise, clove, cut fennel and a line of graphite through phenolics. This is a thoroughly exciting Chardonnay to drink and to ponder- frisky acidity brings crunch and crackle, fleshy fruit envelopes the mouth, and there’s a curved line of phenolics through the finish.
  • Jane Faulkner from Halliday. 96 pts
    A wine like this will stop you in your tracks and demand you take time to smell the roses or, with this, lemon blossoms. It’s a gorgeous offering with moreish sulphides, flint and, of course, powered by acidity and the excellent fruit. There’s a touch of lemon curd and creamy lees across the highly strung palate, pulsing with electrifying acidity. It’s invigorating, savoury, sleek and chic.
Winemaker’s notes
Previous Vintages
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2022
2021
2020
2022
2022. Sooooo, things that were just right. The Forrest Vineyard in central Willyabrup and as you may now know my first and devastatingly brutal love, the tiny Tassel Park vineyard was wiped out in 2021 and in 2022 but hope springs eternal and I have learnt to love again. This second SV wine from this excellent site builds on last year’s work and is pretty darn special. The fruit is of course from a single site, the Forrest Vineyard in the Willyabrup sub-region of Margaret River. Moreover, this wine is from a tiny ridge section from within the middle of this vineyard selectively picked for this wine. Planted to the classic, WA Gin Gin clone, it’s a wine of unbelievable natural acid presence and structural drive. The vineyard is otherwise largely flat and quite close to the coast, some 3 kms only and in common with Tasslel Park, it is planted on deep silver-grey sands. The picking date is generally relatively early in the Chardonnay season given the vineyards low yielding nature.

The grapes were handpicked on 18th of February, a day earlier than 2021, again which I find weird; and whole bunch-pressed directly to new, one- and two-year-old puncheons, with no settling or fining processes. This juice was then carefully monitored and spontaneous fermentation kicked off on day five after pressing. After a Four-week ferment, the wine remained on gross lees un sulphured until September of that year. In December the wine was emptied from barrel, settled, filtered and bottled. This is an exciting site that holds amazing acid structure and lovely al dente tannin. It needs some time to truly unfurl, unfold, and show its true colours, but one sniff will show, that it has the character that Nocturne’s SV Chardys are famous for, Flint, funk, just ripe stone fruit, citrus and hope.... In hope that change is always to grow and to hopefully improve. Get around this wine bright with flint, funk and grilled lime, it’s a bright new future out there.

– Julian Langworthy
2021
2021. Sooooo, things that were just right. The Forrest Vineyard in central Willyabrup and as you may now know my first and devastatingly brutal love, the tiny Tassel Park vineyard was wiped out in 2021 and in 2022 but hope springs eternal and I have learnt to love again. This second SV wine from this excellent site builds on last year’s work and is pretty darn special. The fruit is of course from a single site, the Forrest Vineyard in the Willyabrup sub-region of Margaret River. Moreover, this wine is from a tiny ridge section from within the middle of this vineyard selectively picked for this wine. Planted to the classic, WA Gin Gin clone, it’s a wine of unbelievable natural acid presence and structural drive. The vineyard is otherwise largely flat and quite close to the coast, some 3 kms only and in common with Tasslel Park, it is planted on deep silver-grey sands. The picking date is generally relatively early in the Chardonnay season given the vineyards low yielding nature.

The grapes were handpicked on 18th of February, a day earlier than 2021, again which I find weird; and whole bunch-pressed directly to new, one- and two-year-old puncheons, with no settling or fining processes. This juice was then carefully monitored and spontaneous fermentation kicked off on day five after pressing. After a Four-week ferment, the wine remained on gross lees un sulphured until September of that year. In December the wine was emptied from barrel, settled, filtered and bottled. This is an exciting site that holds amazing acid structure and lovely al dente tannin. It needs some time to truly unfurl, unfold, and show its true colours, but one sniff will show, that it has the character that Nocturne’s SV Chardys are famous for, Flint, funk, just ripe stone fruit, citrus and hope.... In hope that change is always to grow and to hopefully improve. Get around this wine bright with flint, funk and grilled lime, it’s a bright new future out there.

– Julian Langworthy
2020
2020. Sooooo, things that were just right. The Forrest Vineyard in central Willyabrup and as you may now know my first and devastatingly brutal love, the tiny Tassel Park vineyard was wiped out in 2021 and in 2022 but hope springs eternal and I have learnt to love again. This second SV wine from this excellent site builds on last year’s work and is pretty darn special. The fruit is of course from a single site, the Forrest Vineyard in the Willyabrup sub-region of Margaret River. Moreover, this wine is from a tiny ridge section from within the middle of this vineyard selectively picked for this wine. Planted to the classic, WA Gin Gin clone, it’s a wine of unbelievable natural acid presence and structural drive. The vineyard is otherwise largely flat and quite close to the coast, some 3 kms only and in common with Tasslel Park, it is planted on deep silver-grey sands. The picking date is generally relatively early in the Chardonnay season given the vineyards low yielding nature.

The grapes were handpicked on 18th of February, a day earlier than 2021, again which I find weird; and whole bunch-pressed directly to new, one- and two-year-old puncheons, with no settling or fining processes. This juice was then carefully monitored and spontaneous fermentation kicked off on day five after pressing. After a Four-week ferment, the wine remained on gross lees un sulphured until September of that year. In December the wine was emptied from barrel, settled, filtered and bottled. This is an exciting site that holds amazing acid structure and lovely al dente tannin. It needs some time to truly unfurl, unfold, and show its true colours, but one sniff will show, that it has the character that Nocturne’s SV Chardys are famous for, Flint, funk, just ripe stone fruit, citrus and hope.... In hope that change is always to grow and to hopefully improve. Get around this wine bright with flint, funk and grilled lime, it’s a bright new future out there.

– Julian Langworthy