The 2022 Amped Chardonnay from Spoke Wines is a masterclass in textural Chardonnay. Spoke is the visionary collaboration between Liam Steevenson MW and Marlborough winemaker Ben Glover, whose decades of experience in the region are channelled into site-focused, expressive wines that reflect both land and hand.
This 100% Chardonnay hails from the Wilde vineyard, located in a cool maritime pocket of Marlborough and rooted in silt loam and clay soils. These conditions, combined with minimal intervention winemaking, result in a wine that is richly layered, yet beautifully restrained.
On the nose, bruised green apple, stone fruit and almond are immediately apparent, woven with delicate notes of white flowers and honey. The palate follows suit, dry, powerful and deeply complex, with its core defined not by overt acidity, but by minerality and finely grained phenolic texture. This gives the wine a structural integrity and savoury elegance that stands out among modern New Zealand Chardonnays.
Already compelling, the 2022 Amped Chardonnay is delicious now but built to evolve, promising even greater nuance and harmony over the next decade.