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Wine Recommendation
Mission Hill Winery
2005 S.L.C. Chardonnay(Okanagan Valley)
This is Mission Hill’s top of the line Chardonnay. New Zealand-trained John Simes and his winemaking team at Mission Hill approach an age-worthy Burgundian elegance in this Chardonnay, contrasting it with the early drinking styles of the other Chardonnays under Mission Hill and sister labels.
The grapes for this wine are from Mission Hill’s Osoyoos Vineyard, planted on a southwestern slope right against the U.S. border. The exposure ensures ideal heat units. In this vintage, Mission Hill opened up the vine canopy to get more sun on the bunches and thus riper flavours. Forty-five percent of the wine was fermented in French oak; the wine also spent 7.5 months on lees. The restrained aroma is a signal that the wine wants cellaring before blooming fully. On the palate, there are clean citrus and pear flavours. The structure has a fine spine of minerality, with just enough acid to give the wine elegant balance. The bottom line: a refined, elegant Chardonnay. 90 points
Reviewed September 12, 2007 by John Schreiner.
Other reviewed wines from Mission Hill Winery
 2006 Reserve Riesling Fritz Hasselbach Collection (Okanagan Valley)John Schreiner 10/4/2007 |
 2006 Reserve Pinot Blanc, Lakeshore Vineyard (Okanagan Valley)John Schreiner 10/4/2007 |
The Wine
Winery: Mission Hill Winery |
The Reviewer
John Schreiner
John Schreiner has been covering the wines of British Columbia for the past 30 years and has written 10 books on the wines of Canada and BC. He has judged at major competitions and is currently a panel member for the Lieutenant Governor’s Awards of Excellence in Wine. Both as a judge and as a wine critic, he approaches each wine not to find fault, but to find excellence. That he now finds the latter more often than the former testifies to the dramatic improvement shown by BC winemaking in the past decade. |