The 1999 Art Series Chardonnay is creamy, soft and plush now. It’s pillowed and cushioned and spicy, the acidity fully entrenched in the yellow fruit. There are notes of preserved lemons and brine. This is definitely moving into the spiced marmalade, cumin, nutmeg, star anise, exotic space. To capture the fruit, you’d want to drink this in the next few years, but certainly the acidity/fruit/phenolics are not fragmenting in any way.

The 1999 Art Series Chardonnay displays a toastier style with notes of brioche, brown sugar sprinkled oatmeal and chopped cashews over dried mango slices and apricots. Full and opulent with medium to high acid, a suggestion of minerals comes through in the long finish. Mature now, it should continue to cellar to 2014. “Back in the 1970s Margaret River was dying – the wine business established it,” Leeuwin Estate’s Denis Horgan told me as we gazed over his impressive winery, restaurant and concert hall operation. “This area used to have one of the highest unemployment rates in the country previously.” Have a brief drive around Margaret River and its environs and you’ll soon know that the region’s lifeblood these days is wine and its heart is Horgan’s Leeuwin Estate, established in 1975. Never one to do things by half, Horgan’s continually high standards at Leeuwin maintains it as one of the region’s benchmarks. Since Bob Cartwrights’s retirement as Chief Winemaker, Paul Atwood, who is a bit of an institution himself having already made wine there for more than 13 years, has adeptly filled his shoes. Prelude Chardonnay is made just like the Art Series but is blended from a selection of cuvees for earlier drinking. It receives no indigenous ferments and no oxidative handling. The key difference is that there is more forward fruit in Prelude than the Art Series, which is of course designed to age. About 2/3 of the total Chardonnay blocks are fermented in 100% new oak, so that equates to around 40% new oak on the Prelude and it usually spends about 1 year in barrel. The Chardonnays don’t normally go through malo-lactic but for example Paul told me they did use 25% in 2006 because it was a cool vintage. The final difference is that Prelude uses some purchased fruit whereas Art Series is always 100% estate grown. Importer: Old Bridge Cellars, Napa, CA; www.oldbridgecellars.com

Pale, lucid green-straw color. Unusually earthy and funky for a chardonnay from this maker. Ripe and slightly spirity aromas of pineapple, ruby grapefruit, nectarine, quince and lemon, backed by toffee and butterscotch, with a background of spicy vanillin oak. Hugely concentrated and creamy, with piercing pineapple and citrus fruit. Voluminous and sumptuous, with a long but slightly warm finish. A stellar wine, but riper than usual for this bottling.

The 1999 Chardonnay Art Series is complex, rich, and intense. While no shy wine at 14.5% alcohol, it comes across as restrained, with plenty of texture and length, but no in-your-face characteristics. Notes of lemon butter, smoke, and spice are offered in a medium to full-bodied, ageworthy style. This 1999 should drink well for 4-5 years. Importer: Rob McDonald, Old Bridge Cellars, Napa, CA; tel. (707) 258-9552

The 1999 Chardonnay Art Series is complex, rich, and intense. While no shy wine at 14.5% alcohol, it comes across as restrained, with plenty of texture and length, but no in-your-face characteristics. Notes of lemon butter, smoke, and spice are offered in a medium to full-bodied, ageworthy style. This 1999 should drink well for 4-5 years.