Intense and complex - Marlborough Chardonnay doesn't get much better. Layers of fruit, oak, mineral and nutty. Lees flavours with impressive weight and richness. Impossible to fault. Offers excellent value at this price. 98 points Bob Campbell, Gourmet Traveller Wine
Absolutely superb, 94-95 point wine in my opinion. Quite tight and restrained but with enough fruit to see this wine age well for the next 6-7 years. Anthony D'Anna
The scent of pink grapefruit and lemon blossom is beautifully counterbalanced by smoky, savoury aromatics, reminiscent of roasted cashews and macadamia nuts. The palate is rich yet refined with a chalky texture supporting the delicious mineral-like complexity and creaminess derived from traditional winemaking techniques. Gentle fruit handling has produced a tightly structured, elegant wine that will age gracefully over the next six to ten years.
The grapes for this wine – predominantly the low yielding Mendoza clone with a lesser quantity of UCD6 and newer Burgundian clones – were harvested from nine estate and grower vineyards located in the Wairau and Brancott Valleys of Marlborough. Soils vary from the silty gravels found in Rapaura to the fine silty loams of Renwick and the Brancott Valley. The vineyards are planted at a density of 1,850 vines per hectare and all vines are trained to the Scott Henry trellis system.
The chardonnay harvest commenced on 29th March and finished on 24th April. Stable but cool weather with intermittent showers persisted through the harvest period but all fruit was received at the winery in exceptional condition with excellent balance and flavour. Fruit composition averaged 23.9 Brix, pH 3.20 and acid 9.4g/l.
Three quarters of the crop was machine harvested at night into half-tonne bins designed to minimise phenolic extraction and loaded directly into tank presses, the remainder was hand picked and handled the same way. The juice was then racked into stainless steel tanks or oak barrels. The tank portion was inoculated with a pure yeast strain, and then transferred to barrel once fermentation had started. The remainder was allowed to ferment using indigenous yeast strains. All batches were fermented in French oak barrels, 20 percent of which were new and most of the wine went through malolactic fermentation. The components were blended after one full year in barrel and the blend remained on yeast lees for a further period prior to a light fining for clarification, then bottling in the spring of 2003. Final analysis shows an alcohol of 14.0v/v, pH 3.34 and acid of 6.7g/l.
