I bought half a dozen bottles Selaks Reserve Chardonnay 2011 from Pak 'n' Save last week at $13.95 a bottle. I tried one on the weekend and it was stunning.
It would have been stunning and good value at twice the price but that's the way the domestic wine industry has gone I guess.
Selaks (owned by Constellation NZ) has always made good Chardonnay. With a great pedigree of winemakers (Kevin Judd, Darryl Woolley and now Brett Fullerton) and inspired selection of fruit the offerings have always been value for money from the humble Premium Selection to the (now past) Founders Reserve.
Full 'bells and whistles' Chardonnays like Founders Reserve with expensive inputs are becoming a thing of the past. Why make a $50 wine if to sell it you have to discount by at least 50%. This is why the top wine range offered by Selaks is the Winemakers Favourite which is good but not as expensively nurtured as the Founders Reserve.
This Reserve offering is a great step up from the Premium Selection (which due to repeated supermarket specialling has been engineered downwards quite a bit recently) and a fine stepping off point for the Winemakers Favourite.
Maybe the marketers and winemakers have finally got on the same page and have produced something which merits the price point and positioning between Premium Selection and Winemakers Favourite.
Certainly it is better than the overpriced and disappointing Heritage Reserve that preceded it.
See a previous post below.
CLICK HERE
Maybe it was a change of vintage that has made the difference.
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