Wine Review - 2008 McWilliams Hanwood Estates Chardonnay

This Chardonnay is a very popular Aussie wine from a prominent wine company.  It portrays what we have come to know as typical Aussie Chard which is to say it has strong oak flavours and some residual sugar.  The golden colour of the wine usually gives it away.  The one thing we have not seen too much of is the buttery notes that once typified this style of wine.  We liked the buttery for the most part but the vanilla notes are a not as tasty when combined with the sugar.  The crispness is nice but in our opinion it would be better served with more acidity.  That said, it is a tasty wine.  We liked it overall, but I guess we find the sugars a little much for Chardonnay.

From what we can tell the Aussies maintain a tie to having some level of sweetness in their dry wines (i.e. Shiraz and Chardonnay).  This is not a bad thing per se but it definitely changes the typical way one would view these wines.  By that we mean, if I am looking for a dry red or white wine we will certainly not make these styles of wine the first choice.

	Tasting Notes:	Score:
Sight (0-5)	Golden hue, clear and bright	4.0
Smell (0-5)	Peach and honey on the nose	4.0
Taste (0-10)	Crisp with peach with a touch of residual sugar and tropical notes with definite vanilla oak notes	8.0
	Total:	16.0 / 20  (80.0%)