Nose
Abundant peach and nectarine, with a hint of grapefruit as it opens up.
Palate
There are more citrus notes coming through on the palate with grapefruit and candied lemon flavours up front. This is a light bodied wine, but is full of texture and has a seamless line to the finish. With no oak, this wine is all about the purity of the Chardonnay fruit. A wine to enjoy within the next few years and best served lightly chilled.
Growing Conditions
From the summer rainfall & river flooding in the Swan Valley, to the threat of not ripening any of the red grapes in Margaret River, the 2017 vintage will be remembered as one of the most nerve-racking and anxious seasons. It certainly beats all of the last 10 vintages I've seen at Sandalford. Overall, the whole growing season, from Spring through to Summer / Autumn was much cooler than average. There were no heat extremes this year. This delayed the ripening of all varieties by at least 3 -4 weeks than normal. For the whites, the wines have excellent flavour concentration and structure and were harvested with a good natural acid and sugar balance.
Harvest
The fruit for this wine was machine-harvested in February during the cool of night.
Winemaking
The fruit was immediately processed and underwent a long, slow ferment in stainless steel tanks with a selected yeast strain. At the end of fermentation the wine was kept sure lies for a month prior to being blended, stabilised, filtered and bottled.
Appearance
Pale lemon.
