Black Barn Hawke's Bay Barrel Fermented Chardonnay 2015

Description

Lemon straw in the glass with a green hue. The nose if perfumed with fragrant aromas of white stone fruit, brioche with toasty oak and a hint of struck match flintiness. Rich complexity on front palate, which flows with focused fruit and a brightnes that has a lingering finish.

This premium Hawkes Bay Chardonnay comes with a proven pedigree and ,once again, winemaker Dave McKee has delivered a showstopper with this 2015 release. This is a powerful barrel fermented wine whose natural generosity is balanced with a delightful seam of fresh acidity. The palate is mouth filling and persistent. World class.

Individual vineyard parcels of Chardonnay were hand picked. Each parcel was whole bunch pressed. The free run juice was either filled directly to French oak barrels, or settled overnight prior to filling to oak. No additions were made. The juice was allowed to ferment in oak barrels with a mix of indigenous and cultured yeast. Spontaneous Malolactic fermentation followed with regular stirring of lees until early spring. The wine was left in barrel, on full yeast lees until early 2018 (20 months in oak), when it was racked, blended and bottled with minimal fining or filtration.