2021 Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay Art Series Margaret River Australia 750 ml

There’s an echelon of Chardonnay that few know exists and even fewer get to experience. Dominated by Burgundy and California icons like Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Coche Dury, and Peter Michael, it’s packed with 97–100-point bottles that fetch from $250 to as much as $11,000 (really). 

But one consistent outlier is Leeuwin Estate’s Art Series.

Located a stone’s throw from the Indian Ocean in one of the most remote wine regions in the world, Leeuwin Estate has been setting Australia’s white-wine standard for decades. To grasp its importance, consider that Decanter recently staged a retrospective tasting of three decades of this “true classic among Australian Chardonnays.” 

What’s more, Australia’s prestigious Langton’s auction house named the Art Series one of their “Heritage Five,” making it the only white wine to stand with bottles like Penfolds Grange and Henschke’s Hill of Grace.

Everything that Leeuwin does is geared toward maximizing quality. Yields are kept to a minimum so that small bunches retain tremendously concentrated fruit, and the care that Leeuwin applies to the grapes is in their motto: “Treat ‘em like eggs.” James Halliday, Australia’s leading critic, has called Leeuwin “a class act” that works “with the precision of a Swiss watch.”

In the 2021 vintage, that devotion to quality resulted in a historic Art Series Chardonnay: a 98-point classic that Wine Advocate called “powerful and savory…an impressive wine,” and Halliday’s Wine Companion called “powerful, rich and layered with flavour.”

And it’s only poised to improve: Halliday once noted that older vintages of the Art Series can be “reminiscent of top Meursault.” Praise for Chardonnay doesn’t get any higher than that.