San Marzano Edda Bianco Chardonnay Blend 2022

The 2022 San Marzano Edda Lei Salento IGP Bianco has landed and is looking as fantastic as before. From the Puglian foothills, this unique Chardonnay blend (with a few friends in the form of Moscatello & Fiano) is fast becoming one of the great import staples here at TWC. For 5 years in a row, it's notched up the highest honour Italian Wine critic Luca Maroni can bestow upon it: the title of Italian White Wine of the Year and a perfect score (in his books) of 99 points (100 is not achievable or attainable).

This Chardonnay blend wouldn’t look out of place if it came from the old Roxburgh Vineyard in the Hunter, or something more akin to the latter-day Scarborough White label Chardonnays. Like those Australian classics, this too is chock full of goodness (saying its flavour-packed would be an understatement). Peach, biscuit dough, creme Anglaise, Bethonga pineapple and white flowers all dance around a toasty core, with enormous length, and a singular drive that is unmistakably the San Marzano calling card. A shrinking violet, this is not.

There is very little left to the imagination with this wine, serious bottle, serious label, and super-serious juice. Using predominantly Chardonnay fruit from Salento in Puglia (where they throw in a small amount of some local indigenous varieties for good measure), this wine gets the absolute royal treatment expected of a Burgundian Chardonnay or top-tiered Australian Chardonnay.