2024 Shaw + Smith Lenswood Vineyard Chardonnay 750ml

Awards, Ratings & Reviews

GOLD — Adelaide Hills Wine Show · 2025

97/100 — Mike Bennie, Halliday Wine Companion · 2024 Vintage
“A magic moment kind of wine. Scintillating acidity, a gentle, savoury underbelly, crisp stone fruit and green apple characters, a distinct weave of saline minerality with touches of fino sherry and preserved lemon freshness. Add in nougat and ginger snap biscuit, but all of that with an immense sense of fruit purity, too. Savoury, serious, vivid and refreshing in the same breath. A tour de force of chardonnay. Brilliant.”

96/100 — The Wine Front · 2024 Vintage · Tasted: Mar 2026

96/100 — Campbell Mattinson, campbellmattinson.com · 2024 Vintage
“This is as fine as they come. It’s a simply fabulous chardonnay. It blends flavour with sophistication with finesse with flair. It tastes of juicy pear, white peach, mineral, cream, tonic water and smoked cedar, though every nuance comes across as one. The length on this beauty. The exquisite composure. If you’re a lover of chardonnay this wine is enough to make you want to renew your vows to this most beautiful of grape varieties.”

96/100 — Tom Kline, The Wine Pilot · 2024 Vintage
“This is intense and immediate in its perfume with red apple flesh, fine cedar, flint and leesderived pastry dough leading to grilled almond and white peach. There's some cinnamon apple and peach skin with air. The palate is at once precise and expansive — white peach and powdery red apple flesh followed by cinnamon roll, finger lime and a shot of salinity before crackling acidity and powdery phenolics ripple and shimmer through a long, poised and incredibly fresh finish. A classy wine, imbued with freshness, complexity and definition.”

96/100 — Gary Walsh, The Wine Front · 2024 Vintage
“Such a finely-etched and classy wine here. White peach, almond cream, aniseed, spice, a flicker of struck match. It’s gently chalky in texture, a crunch to pure acidity, some green olive, ginger and cinnamon, with a saline and limey finish of outstanding length – somewhat like a margarita in a way – and certainly has that refreshing bite to it. Top shelf.”

95/100 — Huon Hooke, The Real Review · 2024 Vintage
“Smoky, toasted cashewnut, biscuity aromas; delicious balance of grapefruit and lemon too, the fruit doing the talking. Intense and focused palate with real finesse, line and length. Seriously smart wine.”

About This Wine

From low-yielding vines at the estate vineyard in Lenswood, first planted in 1999, with east and west facing aspects and reaching 500 metres above sea level.

Cool and wet conditions during flowering interrupted berry set, resulting in smaller, lighter bunches. The remainder of the season was mostly mild and dry, with well-timed rain events supporting vine growth and health, resulting in low yields, high acidity and great flavour.

Hand-picked and hand sorted, gently whole bunch pressed, then fermented in 500 litre puncheons, 30% new. Full malo, and 10 months in oak before resting in tank prior to bottle.

Producer Notes

Lifted florals and a fine flinty edge sit alongside subtle dried and woody spices. The palate unfurls, revealing layers of citrus and stone fruit with balanced acidity and complex structure. Intensity is matched by restraint, with gentle extract carrying through to a long finish.

About the Producer

Shaw + Smith is a wine producer located in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia. The company was founded by Martin Shaw and Michael Hill Smith MW, and the inaugural vintage was in 1990.

The estate comprises two vineyards in the Adelaide Hills: Balhannah, purchased in 1999; and Lenswood, established in 2012.

Shaw + Smith produces high-quality wines from Chardonnay and Shiraz, alongside other varieties, and uses a range of oak treatments including French barriques and 500-litre puncheons.

Specifications

• Vintage: 2024
• Grape Variety: Chardonnay
• Region: Adelaide Hills / South Australia / Australia
• Alcohol: 12.5–13.5%
• Sweetness: Dry
• Production Attributes: Barrel Fermented · Stainless steel fermentation
• Winemaker: Adam Wadewitz and Martin Shaw
• Drinking Window: 2027–2035