For the first time, Rocket is a single-vineyard wine. A couple of years back, the Downer family purchased Lenswood Vineyard, an 18-hectare property in the Lenswood sub-region of the Adelaide Hills. Initially planted in 1989, this beautiful site is perched at 500 metres and is home to some of the oldest vines in the Lenswood area. Since taking over the property, Downer and his team have worked tirelessly to bring farming and fruit quality at this already revered site up to the exacting Murdoch Hill standards. That work has quickly paid off, with Lenswood now the sole source for the estate’s flagship Rocket Chardonnay.
The site is home to a tapestry of clones, but a mix of the original 1989 I10v1 vines (own-rooted and low-yielding on a steep, east-facing slope) and B76 vines planted in 2000 in the western Forest block was chosen for 2023 Rocket. In terms of style, Downer tells us Lenswood and its clonal mix make for a wine of grace, purity and openness while maintaining racy freshness and lithe structure.
The fruit was pressed as whole bunches to tight-grained barrels (mostly puncheons, 50% new) for fermentation. The wine went through full malolactic conversion with occasional lees stirring throughout an eight-month maturation in wood. The wine was blended and matured for a further few months in tank before bottling. Mike Bennie’s note below captures the wine well; it’s another striking, high-octane model and a world-class Chardonnay.
Critic Reviews
97 POINTS
Nick Ryan - The Australian
“The Downer family has been farming around Oakbank since 1939 and the decision to plant vines 60 years later may have been the best move they ever made. This is chardonnay out on the town and dressed to kill. Sleek, sophisticated and sexy. There’s fragrant white peaches and creamed wild honey, a wisp of flinty funk and an electrifying acid line. Give me this ‘Rocket’ over Bezos or Musk any day.” 97 points, Nick Ryan, The Weekend Australian Magazine: The Drinks Issue
96 POINTS
James Suckling
Powerful aromas of lemon confit, minerals, oyster shells, chalk and candied lime zest. The plate is medium-bodied with underlying power framed by focused acidity, giving notes of fresh pineapple, green apple skin and grapefruit pith. Exceptionally well balanced and tightly constructed.
95 POINTS
Katrina Butler - Halliday Wine Companion
An important wine for the region and site, estate grown in Lenswood. 100% mlf and 50% new oak in both French and Hungarian small and large format oak. Texturally brilliant with a chalky, crushed aspirin-like texture, it melds and relents under the brightness of fruit, leaving only a mineral sherbet tingle behind. Lemon and grapefruit, white stone fruits, raw cashew and nougat, too. There is a softness here that begs for pause, so take some time to appreciate its multifaceted nuance and complexity.
94 POINTS
Mike Bennie - The Wine Front
“It’s tightly wound and compact. A super svelte and textural experience with big energy and chewy, pulverised rock minerality and tension. Firm in a way, and pleasingly so, an inward concentration and drive of succulence and refreshing nature. Green apple galore on the just ripe spectrum, some pink grapefruit, lime, flint and talc too. It soars and begins to spread a little with time too. It’s a wine of serious feel, huge washes of refreshment and glorious fruit purity. Perhaps just a little less multidimensional as its recent past, but right up there and epic as such.” 94 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front 94 points, Mike Bennie, The Wine Front
94 POINTS
Mike Bennie - The Wine Front
Made on Earth by Humans, as the back label says, and don’t you forget it.
It’s tightly wound and compact. A super svelte and textural experience with big energy and chewy, pulverised rock minerality and tension. Firm in a way, and pleasingly so, an inward concentration and drive of succulence and refreshing nature. Green apple galore on the just ripe spectrum, some pink grapefruit, lime, flint and talc too. It soars and begins to spread a little with time too. It’s a wine of serious feel, huge washes of refreshment and glorious fruit purity. Perhaps just a little less multidimensional as its recent past, but right up there and epic as such.
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Tasting Notes
For the first time, Rocket is a single-vineyard wine. A couple of years back, the Downer family purchased Lenswood Vineyard, an 18-hectare property in the Lenswood sub-region of the Adelaide Hills. Initially planted in 1989, this beautiful site is perched at 500 metres and is home to some of the oldest vines in the Lenswood area. Since taking over the property, Downer and his team have worked tirelessly to bring farming and fruit quality at this already revered site up to the exacting Murdoch Hill standards. That work has quickly paid off, with Lenswood now the sole source for the estate’s flagship Rocket Chardonnay.
The site is home to a tapestry of clones, but a mix of the original 1989 I10v1 vines (own-rooted and low-yielding on a steep, east-facing slope) and B76 vines planted in 2000 in the western Forest block was chosen for 2023 Rocket. In terms of style, Downer tells us Lenswood and its clonal mix make for a wine of grace, purity and openness while maintaining racy freshness and lithe structure.
The fruit was pressed as whole bunches to tight-grained barrels (mostly puncheons, 50% new) for fermentation. The wine went through full malolactic conversion with occasional lees stirring throughout an eight-month maturation in wood. The wine was blended and matured for a further few months in tank before bottling. Mike Bennie’s note below captures the wine well; it’s another striking, high-octane model and a world-class Chardonnay.
