Nose
Complex aromas of honey baked beurre bosc pears, stonefruit, roasted hazelnuts, brioche, hints of honeysuckle and creamy lees notes. A beautifully complex expression of Margaret River Chardonnay.
Palate
Dense, focussed and intense - perfectly aligning the fruit and oak. The powerful fruit flavours are introspective at the moment, but still hold the palate together. Some years will see them blossom. The oak, lees contact and mlf give additional complexity. There is great texture and length, and a chalky acid to finish. The palate has great power and focus, but is not fat or heavy. This is a serious Chardonnay of substance and moment.
Growing Conditions
The ninth crop from our home vineyard in Forest Grove. This 0.5 ha was planted in 2004, 1 year after buying the property. A subsequent 1.75 ha of vines was planted in 2008. Our vineyard backs in to the Boranup National Park, and is on a gravelly rise looking west to the Leeuwin Naturalist Limestone Ridge. The total crop of Chardonnay was 1.9 tonne.
Harvest
These grapes were hand harvested on the 22nd February.
Bottling
The wine was minimally fined and filtered.
Bottling was done manually with a gravity filler in my shed.
The wine was then allowed to relax in bottle for a further 15 months prior to being made available for sale.
Winemaking
Whole fruit pressed to retain texture and delicacy. Fermentation was in French oak barriques, 50% of them new, 50% one year old. Following fermentation, mlf was allowed to start, and run through to completion. The wines stayed in these barrels for a total of 18 months, with occassional stirring to suspend the lees. This extended barrel residence time helps to integrate the higher proportion of new oak.
Aging
Fermented in French oak (50% new),malo to completion, matured 18 months in barrel with occasional bâtonnage. Oak is a big part of the story here, however the fruit quietly endures. It's kind of like burying your feet in the sand at the beach as the waves rush in – there's both a grounded quality, and a moving ebb-and-flow quality about this wine. Briny, minerally and layered with salted stone fruit and summer figs. Another impressive Queen of the Earth. It is a style completely unto itself.
Appearance
White-gold, with pale green highlights.
Food Pairing
Panko crusted Augusta whiting, classic roast chicken, seafood Paella, aged Cheddar cheese.
