Vintage 2023 will be more classic than 2022. Fans of Niew will be very happy to hear that Niew Vineyards Chardonnay are now served at 27 Michelin-starred restaurants around the world. It also includes 7 THREE MICHELIN-starred restaurants! Please see the list here. Correct as of April 2025.
Tai-Ran decribes the vintage 2023 as:
'Crystalline, ethereal and gossamer, this wine has a core of citrus fruits, pears and wisps of Jasmine fragrance. The finish is refreshing and saline. It is still young and tight, and will benefit from decanting. It will also develop with age.'
And this is the tasting note of E&R Wineshop (a famous wine merchant in Portland, Oregon):
'Honeysuckle, gossamer, ethereal, chewy-on-finish, refreshing featherweight in a good way, between orchard and stone. Jasmine aromas, and giving additional beauty on days 2 and 3. Crisp, bright, and ready for a long sleep in the cellar or imminent beautiful days ahead'.
iWine.sg: How does vintage 2023 compare with vintage 2022? We noticed that the numbers on the lab analyses looks very similar/close. For example, vintage 2022 was 12.7% abv while vintage 2023 was 12.5% abv.
Tai-Ran: I think the 2023 is more crystalline and tighter than the 2022. Nothing else stands out as being different.
Vintage 2022:
Please take note. According to Tai-Ran, vintage 2022 is his best to date! That says a lot given that Tai-Ran normally doesn't say much about his own wines and let his consumers decide. After the pre-sale, it will be $200.
Vintage 2021 is warmer than 2019 but Tai-Ran harvested 10 days earlier to preserve the acidity but phenolics is as good if not better according to him.
Niew Vineyards 2021 will be available in Korea and Japan now. We are not playing the FOMO thing but our allocation of his wines will reduce as he gets more and more popular around the world. As of now, we are getting more wines than Japan and Korea. Let's hope our ex-Singapore resident keeps it that way.
Only 1,500 bottles of vintage 2021 was made!
2019 vintage
The most highly anticipated wine of 2021 has arrived. We present to you Niew Vineyards Chardonnay 2019 from Oregon, USA. Made by ex-Singapore resident and ex-banker Tai-Ran Niew @nievine on Instagram. We tasted few vintages of Bordeaux that he made with VINIV and we liked the style of the wines. We also tasted with him on many occasions and found that our palates are very similar. BUT this Chardonnay really blew our socks off!
We opened this wine at 11am. Was rather closed/tight but we really liked the focus/precision, freshness and a Puligny Montrachet like acidity and minerality. Fresh lemon and lime combo. Almost saline minerality. Medium bodied. Spot on oak management – low intensity and well-integrated. At around 5pm we retasted. With aeration and slight higher temperature, the fruits blossomed and only then you could tell that the fruits are ripe (lemon and melon) yet fresh and held firmly by the mineral backbone. What a sublime wine! We seldom use this descriptor so you can imagine how impressed we were. Drink now with aeration till 2035. Only 1,320 bottles made!!
We totally agree with Tai-Ran’s own notes that this wine has a core of ethereal and vivacious citrus fruits and a refreshing saline finish! What an amazing feat for his first Chardonnay vintage! We can’t wait for the wine from his own Chardonnay vineyards (farmed according to Masanobu Fukuoka’s natural farming method)! Stay tuned.
For geeks: The grapes are from Lingua Franca’s LS Vineyard. Organically farmed (but not certified), non-irrigated Chardonnay clone 548 and 76. Native yeasts, 12 months ageing in oak – 1 x 350 litres new Damy puncheon and 3 x neutral 228l barrels. i.e about 1/3 new oak. 6 months of lees ageing. Only approx. 23mg/l free sulphur. Total sulphur is less than 100mg/l which is within Biodynamic limit and lower than organic limit!
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