2022 Pyramid Valley Lions Tooth Chardonnay

96 POINTS

Rebecca Gibb MW - Vinous

The 2022 Chardonnay from the high-density Lion's Tooth parcel is an arresting wine that sucks you in but doesn’t spit you out. It’s not a wine you'll want to spit out either. This 2022 draws you in with its harmony, expansive nature, silken texture and sense of tranquility. It is subtle in its flavors - this is Chardonnay, after all – with flinty characters giving way to toasted nuts and oatmeal, lemon curd and nectarine. This is not a fruity but savory, restrained style that focused on texture over aromatics. Meditation for the mouth.

96 POINTS

James Suckling

Pure and polished aromas of lemon confit, lime curd, chalk and orange blossoms. The medium-bodied palate has bright, piercing acidity and tightly wound flavors of grapefruit peel, flint, dough, green apples and pastry cream. High tension, showing layers of complexity that will unravel with time. Excellent.

96 POINTS

Emma Jenkins MW - Decanter

From a tiny east-facing parcel of limestone-clay soils at Pyramid Valley’s Waikari vineyard, this is a complex, savoury wine that's all about texture and minerality. There’s a bright lift of grapefruit, mandarin, oatmeal and flint allied to a dense palate with good mouthfeel, saline acidity and long, dry finish. Very focused and sophisticated.

95 POINTS

Erin Larkin - Robert Parker Wine Advocate

The 2022 Lion's Tooth Chardonnay is nutty, complex, wide and concentrated, with a stream of yellow fruits and briney acidity. It's a gorgeous wine, one that I recall with great fondness when I think of it. It has beeswax, lemongrass, yellow peach, mustard leaf/greens, curry leaf and saline threads woven through the finish. This is another great wine from this vineyard this year. 13% alcohol, sealed under screw cap.

95 POINTS

Dave Brookes - Halliday Wine Companion

Chardonnay, biodynamically farmed since planting in 2000, from an east-facing 0.4ha slice of the Pyramid Valley Waikari estate. Light straw with aromas of nectarine and grapefruit with hints of soft spice, oyster shell, lemon curd, white flowers, clover blossom, crushed flint, grilled cashews and Graham crackers. Taut, febrile and filigreed with a sapid, saline burst of acidity that perfectly balances the richness of the stone fruits as the wine trails away.

95 POINTS

Christina Pickard - Wine Enthusiast

The richer of the two single vineyard Chardys, Lion's Tooth may be toasty and opulent but it's never heavy, the smoked nuts, flint, grilled pineapple and salted grapefruit lifted by a rush of citrusy acidity, which cuts through the textural weight of the palate. It finishes long and juicy. A classy and highly age-worthy bottling with a strong nod towards Burgundy. Drink now—2040.

94 POINTS

Mike Bennie - The Wine Front

Huw Kinch is writing the second chapter and best possible one for Pyramid Valley. There’s so much storied history of its Mike and Claudia era that it’s hard to judge where to go, so best to go with hand on heart, maintain the best practice farming, and go for the best hands off-mind connected wines you can make, seems the deal. Soft and supple, flows beautifully, an intensity of fruit, the DNA of the wine bound by nutty savouriness, shortbread, ginger, crushed granitic mineral characters, and around that green apple, lime, preserved lemon, mixed floral elements. It feels relaxed in texture, a great deal of space and dimension to the wine, but freshness is inherent. A gentle sour-sweetness and hay-straw character in there too. Pleasure and intellect buttons pressed.