2021 Althorne Estate Chardonnay Crouch Valley

Full bottle 1,551 g. Chardonnay from a single vineyard in Crouch Valley, Essex. Hand-picked. Aged in French oak barrels.
This is rather exciting for an English Chardonnay. I`d love to taste it blind with a a range of cool-climate Chardonnays but I did taste it alongside of Vergelegen`s 2022 Reserve Chardonnay and it was unfalteringly graceful. The most interesting thing was to watch the evolution of this wine from fridge cold to five hours later, all of which it spent on my desk waiting patiently for me to get through 21 Cap Classique sparklings. It is a beauty, and this is the first thing to say is that the longer you can give it in the glass, the better. The second thing is: don`t serve it cold. This wine starts tight, fist clenched, quarry closed. Then it starts to develop, amplify, fruit seeps through the cracks of the minutes of time, and suddenly the glass is suffused with orange juice and light and the craquelure of match smoke. Very very exciting wine. Could this be one of the best English Chardonnays yet? Time for a blind tasting, I think. 17 points