2021 Reserve Chardonnay

95 points (GOLD) - Cowra Wine Show 2022

Vintage comparison:
2015 Chardonnay: 97 points (GOLD) - Halliday Wine Companion 2018
2013 Chardonnay: 94 points (SILVER) - Halliday Wine Companion 2016

Variety: Chardonnay 100%
Region: Margaret River 100%
Sub Region: Karridale/Wilyabrup
Colour: Pale Gold
Cellaring Potential: This wine is drinking beautifully now and will reward cellaring over the next 5 years
Bouquet: Our Reserve Chardonnay has a bright and lifted nose of sweet pastry, lemon curd and fleshy white stonefruit
Palate: The palate displays a rich and layered mix of fresh stonefruit, citrus and intense vanilla bean flavours. A fine mineral thread ensures a wine of length and persistence

Viticulture:
The vineyard is planted on Karri loam gravel soils with underlying laterite. Vine rows run north /south down a moderate north facing slope and are clone Gin-Gin with trellis structured to vertical shoot positioning.

The vineyard is subject to the cool Southern Ocean breezes and ripens slowly, evenly and with naturally high acidity.

Winemaking:
The fruit is handpicked then cooled before whole bunch pressing. New and seasoned barrels are filled directly from the press to enhance complexity. Only the free run fraction is reserved with harder pressings separated to ensure a delicate and fine expression of the fruit in this wine.

The juice is left to ferment spontaneously and can take up to three weeks to ferment with some cooling at the height of ferment.

After ferment the barrels are topped and gently stirred with inert gas protection monthly.

A small number of barrels were encouraged to finish malolactic fermentation to ameliorate the natural acidity.

After nine months in barrel the wine is assembled in tank and aged on lees to further encourage complexity.

Alc:% 12.4
pH: 3.39
TA: 6.7g
LRS: Dry