The Le Grand Clos Chardonnay, pictured here alongside its sister wine, the Grand Clos Pinot Noir, another simply smashing wine.
2019 Le Clos Jordanne “Le Grand Clos”, Twenty Mile Bench VQA, Ontario, Canada (Alcohol 13.2%, Residual Sugar 1.5 g/l) Le Clos Website $44.95 (750ml bottle)
When I first tasted this wine a few months back I was most impressed but found it a little shy and closed aromatically. Upon revisiting this wine last week, I was delighted to discover that it was really coming into its own, the bouquet opening up a little more, and displaying its magnificent potential. Winemaker Thomas Bachelder has always been a dab hand with the Chardonnay grape, and with this 2019 vintage from Le Clos Jordanne‘s most prized Twenty Mile Bench plot (with only around 3 hectares planted to Chard), he’s done a tremendous job crafting what I feel will rapidly become an iconic cool climate Chardonnay.
Perhaps it’s something to do with the vine age, but I’ve have noticed considerably more intensity and depth to these Chardonnays from the last three vintages of the rebooted Le Clos Jordanne, and it’s that aspect coupled with the wines taut elegance that makes me fall so hard for this wine. Like a ballet dancer’s tightly drawn musculature, this wine has poise and grace with some serious underlying power and élan. Did I just write that? Wow, I’m getting rather carried away by this wine’s seductive wiles. I need a cold shower. Or perhaps some bromine tea would be more apropos.
The bouquet gives us loads of ripe Niagara apples, peaches, and apricots with touches of more tropical fruits such as pineapple and mango being revealed as the wine gently warms in the glass. There are also delicate touches of lemon drop, lanolin, and warm baking spices that add to the already complex aromatics. There’s a defined and precise mineral flintiness in the background of both the nose and the palate, alongside some lovely chalkiness, characteristics I’ve tasted in all of these wines since the inaugural vintage. The palate is generous, giving, and full but restrained by its tight, classic cool climate acidic reins.
Absolutely terrific stuff. Give it a few more years in bottle, just enough to allow it to evolve a little more, and I may be up for awarding it a rare five apples. Now if only I could stop drinking the stuff as soon as I purchase it…
(Four and a half apples out of possible five)
Le Clos Jordanne wines are represented in Ontario by Arterra Wines Canada.
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