Brilliant Botanica Mary Delany Chenin Blanc 2022 – An ode to special terroir
Brilliant Botanica Mary Delany Chenin Blanc 2022 – An ode to special terroir
Brilliant Botanica Mary Delany Chenin Blanc 2022
A benchmark 2022 release from Ginny Povall
From the magical Citrusdal Mountain ward on the late Henk Laing’s farm, Botanica’s Mary Delany Chenin Blanc ‘should demand the same cult status as anything else from there’, affirms Christian Eedes. This brilliant wine needs no introduction. For more than a decade, it’s consistently been rated 95 plus by Platter’s, Winemag and Tim Atkin MW!
The Mary Delany Chenin Blanc 2022 has managed to add even more refinement than previous iterations, with extra energy and verve. Burgeoning demand means that new releases are snapped up before the critics publish their scores, and this will be no exception. 2022 is a particularly great vintage for this wine – it’s right up there with Ginny’s best releases and could be the finest yet! Get some while you can.
The Mary Delany Chenin Blanc 2022 is produced from an old-vine parcel planted in 1960. Picked in two tranches and a touch earlier than previous vintages, it has just under 13% alcohol, managing both restraint and fruit depth. The pitch perfect combo of salinity and freshness serves as a foil to the concentrated pineapple and just-ripening peach. It’s immensely complex, with fynbos, curry leaf and ginger notes, and further layers of wet wool and hay. The chalky finish is long, defined, and super satisfying.
This benchmark Chenin is a fitting tribute to a one of our great wine growers – Henk Laing – and sets the bar very high for other 2022 releases.
