Te Mata Elston Chardonnay 2024

Te Mata Estate was established here in 1896, specialising in high-quality wines of classical style. Every step in the production of our wines is undertaken by us; from grape growing and pruning through to small-batch winemaking, sub-regional blending, and bottling. After 130 years of winemaking onsite Te Mata Estate has both the oldest and the newest – most technically advanced – cellars in New Zealand.

Hawke’s Bay is a very special place for making wine. Its range of slopes, plains and climatic differences, coupled with low humidity and ample ultra-violet light, give winemakers a comprehensive toolkit to showcase their skills. There are micro-regions on sandstone, lime, clay and iron, and many with young soils derived from the gravels, silt and sands left behind as the five main rivers of Hawke’s Bay changed course over thousands of years.

The superb quality of the 2024 vintage was immediately apparent in the fully ripe grapes that were hand harvested from their separate, individual plots within Te Mata Estate’s vineyards between 26 February and 20 March 2024.

Each parcel was gently whole-cluster pressed, cold settled and racked to new and seasoned French oak barrels for fermentation. The resulting wines remained in contact with their yeast lees, with a number going through malolactic fermentation. The finest lots were selected for further maturation, spending a total of 11 months in barrel with 33% being new oak.