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 wines with 95 point and above scores, it’s hard to know which of these wines to choose. Mattinson guides you through this maze, leading you to the best Australian wines, the best wine stories, the best wine producers, the best value wines, the most prestigious wines and simply, to the best tasting wines.

Mattinson has been a photo-journalist since 1987. For the past 25 years he’s been helping people find the world’s best wines. He’s the only Australian wine journalist to have won the Australian Wine Communicator of the Year Award more than once. He is a past winner of a prestigious Louis Roederer International Wine Media Award, and is the author of the award-winning book The Wine Hunter.

https://www.campbellmattinson.com
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