• French oak
• Ripe stone fruit
• Nuttiness
• Creamy

An elegant and finely balanced wine. Ripe, concentrated flavours of citrus and nectarine fruit with barrel ferment nuttiness and a slightly creamy texture help to give nice weight and finish.

The aim for this Chardonnay is to retain a fresh structure rather than producing a wine that is too broad. The clone and site help with this, but also the picking decisions also work to retain acidity in the glass. This wine comes from a small parcel in the Twin Valley Vineyard, located in the Fareham Lane area of Marlborough. The vineyard is at the western end of the Wairau Valley, at the junction with the Waihopai, and is on the top terrace. The upper terrace along the Wairau has a more complex soil, a great mixture of silt, clay and stones that give drainage but also some water-holding to help the vines through the dry periods. Being some distance from the sea the climate is also cooler. The grapes therefore typically ripen more slowly and retain an interesting mineral character. The vines were cropped low to ensure ripeness and palate richness. The grapes were then whole-cluster pressed and the high-solids juice taken straight to French barriques for fermentation with indigenous yeast. After 15 months in oak we felt the balance was correct and took the wine from barrel.

There are a number of distinguishing characteristics about this vintage, with the first being that it was one of our latest starts to date. Temperatures were not particularly low but the sunshine hours, especially in March had been a bit lower which slowed the process of photosynthesis. This year we harvested at slightly lower Brix than usual to make sure that the fruit was clean and aromatic rather than leaving it out to go through the tail ends of both Cyclone Debbie and Cook. The ferments were super aromatic and it was a year that gentle fruit handling and lower crop levels were appreciated, and one that really showed the value of having our own winery.

Mahi, meaning ‘our work, our craft’, began in 2001, fulfilling a dream of ours. After 15 vintages it was time to do our own thing. With a strong focus on single-vineyard wines, and now backed up by a series of premium regional wines from Marlborough, the idea behind Mahi is to respect and promote the individuality of the various vineyards. The Mahi symbol represents the strength, life and growth of the native New Zealand frond (fern), with the understanding that wine should never be rushed to bottle, respecting its ability to evolve naturally over time.