Bilancia Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2020

Description

• French oak
• Stonefruit
• Citrus
• Textured

"The bouquet releases scents of complexity then ripe yellow and white fleshed fruits, some spice, grapefruit peel and vanilla. Calm, even, complex and youthful. On the palate - medium+ weighted wine with a core of stone fruit flavours as the wine touches the palate. There’s a youthful tension and poise highlighting mouthfeel with a mix of fruit and wood tannins then a youthful acid line. There’s a chablis-esq feel to this example with a mineral signature emerging as the wine warms and relaxes in glass. Well made, fresh and tasty finishing with a citrus tang. Best drinking from mid 2022 through 2028+" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Dec 2021

"Concentrated, textural chardonnay with peach, nectarine, oyster-shell and spicy oak flavours, with a backbone of tangy acidity. A big, almost buttery, yet high-energy wine in a food-friendly style" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Feb 2022

It is a youthful, nicely wound wine with emphasis on a fresh, food friendly style and evenly balanced palate. Ripe stonefruit and citrus on the nose and palate with great texture and character and some minerality. This wine is ready to drink on release and will continue to develop and fill out for 4 – 6 years.

The 2020 Bilancia Chardonnay was sourced from two vineyards at Roys Hill, Hawke’s Bay; la collina and Trelinnoe. The 2020 Bilancia Chardonnay is approximately 60% from Trelinnoe vineyard and 40% from la collina vineyard. The aim is to produce a wine that reflects the variety rather than the winemaking. 

2020 was the vintage of irony; truly spectacular fruit harvested under the cloud of the global pandemic.

The Chardonnay was all hand picked, with each vineyard kept separate. The fruit was whole-bunch pressed and the juice run straight to barrels from the press, with no cold settling, for fermentation in new and older French oak. Indigenous yeast carried the fermentations to dryness. The wine spent 11 months in oak prior to bottling; there was no fining or cold stabilisation.