Howard Park Petit Jeté NV

The entire Jeté range offers excellent fizz with prices to match. This is full of white peach and citrus, ginger spice and yeasty bread-biscuit flavours. It has some complexity, it’s refreshing, and it finishes rather zingy and super dry. Nice one.

Light to medium colour, bright yellow, with a good collar of foam. The aroma is fresh and clean, showing some subtle dried fruit and dried herb notes and the palate soft and full, round and ample with generosity and attractive texture, if not great complexity. It finishes clean, dry and refreshing. Lovely wine.

This is a nicely cut sparkling wine with fresh, bright lemon and stone-fruit aromas and flavours, delivering much in the way of drinkable appeal.

I do like a BdB style. Richness of honeycomb, brioche and bread crust with gun flint, whipped cream, spiced warm apple and peachy stone fruit. Very good structure. Harmony between textural elements, a well formed mid palate with expressive mousse and keen acidity through the tail. Fine value.”

If you were going to pick a region to make super Blanc de Blancs sparkling wine then the Great Southern would have to be one of your go to regions thanks to its mix of both a cool climate and beautifully pristine environment which give superb purity of Chardonnay fruit. Mid straw in colour with a dusting of gold, it opens with beautifully elegant and precise aromas, from nectarine to florals and citrus well balanced with just cooked pastry bottle age influences. The palate is then bright, fresh and vibrant with a light, silky touch and crisp acid backbone before opening up to a soft finish accented by touches of buttered toast. A delicious aperitif, at any time of the day.

Howard Park Wines are West Australia’s most ambitious sparkling winemaker. They have 4 wines in the Jeté range – 2 NV blancs, an NV rosé, and a vintage. Petit Jeté is their lightest wine. A blanc de blancs made from 100% chardonnay from Pemberton and Mount Barker in the cool south west. It’s early picked to capture crisp, bright and chalky fallouts. 2018 is the core vintage but other seasons are blended for complexity and consistency. More racy and less biscuity than non-vintage Champagne. Crack it open at your next celebration or enjoy with oysters or cream cheese.”

Blanc de blancs made from 100% chardonnay. Complex notes of blanched almonds, shortcrust pastry, lemons, dried apples and sea shells. It’s elegant and fresh with fine bubbles and vibrant acidity. Dry.

This is a blanc de blancs style made from 100% chardonnay. Has a nice crunchy lemon rind and citrus aroma that rolls with distinctive biscuit bready nuances. The palate is light and crisp with a very complete and pleasing mouth feel. There is texture but there is a fine linear feel that makes it such a refined elegant wine.

Soft golden hue with very fast moving and tight beads. All warm pastry and brioche characters with crisp white stone fruit, brown spices, peanut oil, hazelnuts, brown pomme fruit and just a suggestion of raspy wood. Firm and serious with a chalky grip. There’s plenty of rich yellow citrus: grapefruit and lemon wrapped with flaky and crisp pastry and biscuitty tones. The chalky and briny finish will have you reaching for a second glass to slake your thirst.

Blanc de Blancs – 100% Chardonnay. Slightly toasty, briny, barnacled ocean shell. Preserved lemon and sea spray. Savoury and mineral-led nose. It’s rather streamlined and piercing. Very taut, with green appley acidity, but not to the extreme of shrieking from the glass. Some nice phenolics – just enough grip. Bit of spice and green coriander stalk. Mid finish. A good aperitif style, uncomplicated. There is some pink lady apple skin here, too, white florals and some sweet/sour tones. Dry and crisp finish.

This is refreshing and just complex enough. It’s good value. It tastes of peach, citrus, brown bread and yeast, with a shell-grit character just evident through the finish. I thought it was slightly simple on first tasting but I came around to it; it reveals a bit more with every sip.