2024 Bondar Hope Springs Eternal Chardonnay

95 pts
A new cuvee and what Andre Bondar thinks is the most special Chardonnay he's made under Bondar to date.

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Sale price$75.00
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Description

Hope Springs Eternal is a highly anticipated new project for Andre and Selina Bondar, designed with a singular focus: to craft elite, age-worthy wines from the absolute best vineyard sites in the region.

For the inaugural 2024 Chardonnay, they headed up to the high-altitude Bowyer Ridge vineyard in Lobethal, sitting at over 500 meters above sea level. This is a micro-production release sourced from just three select French oak barriques. The winemaking is beautifully stripped back and unadorned - free of flashy cellar tricks - allowing the cool-climate fruit to speak for itself, though it did undergo full malolactic fermentation to weave a subtle creaminess into its structural frame.

The result is a tightly coiled powerhouse that has already scooped a massive 95+ points from the Halliday Wine Companion. It's a pristine, drive-y wine built for the long haul. Give it a year in the cellar to fully stretch its legs, and watch it evolve beautifully over the next decade.

95+ points
"This needs a little time, with winemaking tricks pleasingly absent, but the acidity is coiled, crimping in flavour, of which there is ample, and texture. Time will heal. Cool nectarine, moving into ripeness, lemon, green pear, a stone fruit-kernel nuttiness, fig leaf, faint traces of oak spice. There’s a little creaminess, a crème brûlée note, appealingly fine pithiness and then the acid drive. The length is impressive. Just give this a year or so to bring out its best – it will be interesting to see its arc."
- Marcus Ellis (Halliday Wine Companion)

95+ points - "A new wine in this lineup, from Bowyer Ridge vineyard, Lobethal, at over 500m. Three barriques, two older, one second fill, with full mlf. This needs a little time, with winemaking tricks pleasingly absent, but the acidity is coiled, crimping in flavour, of which there is ample, and texture. Time will heal. Cool nectarine, moving into ripeness, lemon, green pear, a stone fruit-kernel nuttiness, fig leaf, faint traces of oak spice. There’s a little creaminess, a crème brûlée note, appealingly fine pithiness and then the acid drive. The length is impressive. Just give this a year or so to bring out its best – it will be interesting to see its arc." - Marcus Ellis (Halliday Wine Companion)

Type White
Body Full Bodied
Variety Chardonnay
Country Australia
Region Adelaide Hills
Australian State SA
Feature High Score
Reviewed By Halliday Wine Companion
Critic Score 95
Size 750ml
Vintage 2024
Closure Cork

Bondar Wines

Andre & Selina Bondar are one of the great modern Australian wine success stories. We have been massive fans of their wines since their very first vintage and tell anyone who will listen that if you want to taste what modern McLaren Vale wines are all about then this is who you need to try.

Their home block, the highly decorated Rayner Vineyard, which straddles the Blewitt Springs and Seaview sub-regions of The Vale, was originally planted back in the 1950s but the Bondar family chapter in that vineyard's story will be its most significant. Dre and Sel's wines are honest and vibrant, built more on freshness and digestibility rather than raw South Australian power.

They make brilliant, vibrant Grenache, balanced and concentrated Shiraz, elegant Adelaide Hills Chardonnay, and one of the country's most bankable Rose wines plus a raft of small-batch alternative varieties. Their range nails quality and drinkability at every turn.

Andre & Selina Bondar - McLaren Vale, SA Discover Bondar Wines

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