Kunin Wines Jurassic Park Sparkling Chenin Blanc 2020

Written By Campbell Mattinson
Bottle of Kunin Wines Jurassic Park Sparkling Chenin Blanc 2020, from the Santa Ynez Valley, reviewed by Campbell Mattinson.

Kunin Wines Jurassic Park Sparkling Chenin Blanc 2020
Santa Ynez Valley, DIAM cork.

Winemaker Magan Kunin described this as a “love letter to Santa Barbara.” It’s chenin blanc, sparkling, made using Methode Champenoise techniques. It was the first wine that I tasted on a trip to California recently, it was just really an introductory sip, and yet it had me rocked from the outset.
This sparkling wine is complex, earthen, awash with intense apple – cooked and fresh – flavours and infused with notes of rosewater, crushed fennel, quince, cumin and peach. It’s textural, characterful and well sustained but it’s the wine’s waxy, honeyed, earthen notes that really draw you in. This is a beautiful sparkling wine, character-laden. 

This wine saw zero-dosage, I believe. If so, it didn’t need the adulteration; it’s got it all going on without it.

Campbell Mattinson

This article was written by Campbell Mattinson, founder of The Winefront and mattinson, and former chief editor of Halliday.

When you pick up a wine book and see thousands of top-scoring wines, it’s hard to know which wine to choose. Mattinson guides you through this maze, giving you an honest view of the best Australian wines, the best wine stories, the best wine producers, the best value wines and simply, the best tasting wines. Importantly, Mattinson will tell you about the top-rated wines and also about the underrated wines. In short, Mattinson knows Australian wines inside and out.

Mattinson has been a photo-journalist since 1987. For the past 25 years he’s been a voice that you can trust when you’re looking for the best wines. He’s the only Australian to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He’s a past winner of a Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award, and is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter. He’s not afraid to put a score beside a wine. But what he’d rather do, is tell you the wine’s story.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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