Nose
Aromas of fresh tropical fruits and citrus with some grassy herbaceous notes.
Palate
Tropical fruit flavours of guava, paw paw and honeydew melon with elements of citrus and red apple create a complex fruit salad style palate.The wine displays some nice fruit weight and texture with an attractive sweetness balanced with fresh natural acidity
Growing Conditions
Following one of the coldest and wettest winters on record, a cooler than average growing season commenced later than normal with bud burst in mid September. Overall the summer was cooler than average, however a nice November and early December saw sunshine and warmer weather provide perfect conditions for flowering which resulted in excellent fruit set. Observing the lateness of the season and and the potentially high yields, the vineyard team commenced an extensive crop thinning program in January, pre-véraison. Late summer and early autumn were also slightly cooler and wetter than average, resulting in a delayed start to harvest. Our first harvest for the vintage was Chardonnay which was handpicked on 28 February, some three weeks later than a "normal" season. Chardonnay was steadily harvested during the first two weeks in March. Sauvignon Blanc, Semillon and Chenin Blanc followed immediately afterwards and, all of the fruit reaped the benefits of the cooler season, showing excellent concentration of flavours with nicely balanced acidity. The vines appreciated the milder ripening weather with no excessive heat, allowing intense varietal characters to develop with excellent freshness, vibrancy and purity.The fruit for our 2017 Chenin Blanc is sourced from two Estate vineyard blocks. The main vineyard contributing to the wine is Weightmans Block 1 which displays excellent early flavour development ensuring good natural acidity. The vineyard soils are typically gravelly loams with a stony clay subsoil with excellent drainage and good moisture holding capacity, producing vines with exceptional balance. All the vines are carefully hand-pruned, shoot thinned and are cultivated to a target yield of ten tonnes per hectare.
Winemaking
The Chenin Blanc vineyards were harvested on 22nd and 23rd March during the cool night conditions. The fruit was delivered to the winery for immediate pressing to ensure the aromatics were preserved. Once pressed, the juice was settled to aid clarification, prior to racking and innoculation with selected yeast strain QA23. Alcoholic fermentation was kept at 15 degrees Celsius to retain aromatics. Once completed the wine was left on yeast lees for four weeks with regular stirring to enhance the textural components of the palate. Ten percent of the blend was fermented in three-year-old French oak to aid complexity and then aged a further two months with weekly batonnage prior to blending, filtration and bottling on 10 July 2017.
Appearance
Medium straw green
Food Pairing
Excellent with mildly-spiced Asian dishes or fresh seafood, the Chenin Blanc is equally good pairing for many vegetarian dishes.
