Chamonix Wine Estate's Chardonnay 2025, sourced from vineyards planted in 2022, is the maiden expression of vineyards that have already begun to speak with an eloquence far beyond their youth. Winemaker Neil Bruwer calls it “one of the most pleasing surprises of my career.”
Planted on the upper reaches of the estate at 400 metres above sea level, the new Chardonnay vineyards face due south toward the cool breath of the Franschhoek mountains. Here, sunlight behaves differently: softer in tone, slower in accumulation, imparting a gradual ripening that encourages nuance over exuberance. Despite the vines entering their first harvest, the wine displays what can only be described as remarkable composure.
“This vineyard is still a child, but a precocious one,” says Bruwer. “The very first juice we pressed from these grapes made it clear we were working with something special. Even though we picked early to preserve Chamonix’s signature tension, the flavour intensity was astonishing. It showed the kind of purity and mineral grip you’d expect from vines far older.”
The wine was whole-bunch pressed, a technique Bruwer uses to retain the crystalline freshness and textural finesse that are hallmarks of great cool-climate Chardonnay. Fermentation proceeded at a slow, natural pace before the young wine was left on its lees for five months, building understated weight and quiet layers of flavour without ever losing its taut frame.
“Our intention from the outset was to make this wine unwooded,” Bruwer explains. “It gives the vineyard nowhere to hide. There is no cloak of oak, no warmth to pad the angles. You see the site as it is. And what came out of the tank was more complete, more articulate than we imagined. It’s incredibly encouraging for the future of this vineyard.”
Tasting the Chamonix Chardonnay 2025, one is reminded of the classicism of fine unwooded Chardonnay, those wines where the tension between fruit and stone makes for conversation as much as consumption. Aromatically, the wine leads with crushed oyster shell, white blossoms, and the faintest hint of green citrus zest. On the palate, it moves with a laser-defined precision alerting the palate with lime pith, green apple, wet granite, and a saline tug that pulls the acidity long across the tongue.
But beyond flavour, it is the restraint that impresses: a cool austerity that feels intentional, a whisper of promise from vines that will, year by year, engrave themselves deeper into the granitic soils of Chamonix’s mountain slopes.
For an estate that has, over the past thirty years, built one of South Africa’s most enduring reputations for Chardonnay, this new release from Chamonix’s new vineyard-planting programme in 2022 and 2023 is both a continuation and a beginning. It honours the legacy forged by previous winemakers while signalling an exciting frontier for the next generation.
“Chardonnay has always been central to Chamonix’s identity,” says Bruwer. “These new vineyards give us the chance to reinterpret that heritage. Not replacing, but refresh it. If this first vintage is anything to go by, the future is bright, energetic, and wonderfully mineral.”
In a time when South African Chardonnay continues to win global respect, the Chamonix Chardonnay 2025 stands as a testament to what young vines, a great site, and a patient hand can achieve. It is a wine of clarity, authenticity, and quiet authority, the kind that reminds one why Franschhoek, and Chamonix in particular, remains a treasured corner of the Cape winelands.