Chris Scott The Florilegium Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2024

Description

"Very classy… A distinctive wine with concentrated stonefruit flavours, it has excellent vibrancy, depth and complexity, with a lasting finish" Michael Cooper

"As a whole the wine is fine and elegant with clarity and gravitas in equal parts. Texture is plush and adds volume towards a finish that is quite seamless and lengthy. A stunning debut" David Walker-Bell, Winefolio

"Chalk and flinty reduction lingers on this restrained yet concentrated chardonnay. Full bodied, with really driving, underlying acidity, and there are coiled flavours of white peach, grilled lemon, lime leaf and orange blossom all waiting to burst forth from its shell of youthful austerity. Firm and compact with plenty of underlying power which will reveal itself with bottle age. There is just a touch of stony reduction which currently clips the back but this should resolve if left along for a year or two. Enjoy over the long-term as it gains nutty complexity, weight and breadth" Stephen Wong, Master of Wine, The Real Review, Mar 2026

Texturally and structurally complete, aromatically complex, The Florilegium is a wine of great depth and harmony. Luxurious yet understated, opulent but never loud. A seamless wine that builds gently but surely across the palate. The approach is fine textured and restrained, then feathers out across the mid and back palate, gently building in weight and presence as it goes. it has a sense of richness without ever appearing heavy or cloying and finishes long, lithe and finessed with a finely tuned acidity and an element of flinty, slate-like grip helping to draw out the finish. The aroma profile includes ripe white peach, acacia flower, zesty citrus fruit and blossom, toasted almond, hazelnut and mineral elements. But there is a subtleness to the aromatics as a whole. No one element is leaping out and each note is deliciously complimentary. Overall, the wine leaves an impression of refinement.

The Florilegium is our flagship wine, our Grande Cuvee. Rather than adopt a Burgundian model, where the terroir of a single vineyard is the hero, we believe the best wines can be made with an approach more akin to great Champagne, where the art of blending is celebrated. Understanding and harnessing the attributes and personalities of each vineyard, clone and ferment to bring to life something that is greater than the sum of the parts.

95% is from a gentle slope in the lower Tukituki Valley, this area is close to the coast and relatively exposed to the cooling afternoon sea breeze making this the coolest and latest ripening of our three sub regions. Soils are shallow clay loam over a hard calcified clay pan, resulting from limestone erosion. Whether it is this limestone influence, the cooling sea breeze or both, Chardonnay from this site is fragrant and elegant, yet never insubstantial. It is characterised by a wisp of flinty oystershell and a touch of briny salinity that conjures up a sense of the sea. I have worked closely with this vineyard for many years. It is without a doubt, one of the best Chardonnay vineyards in New Zealand and we were delighted to secure a small allocation of fruit for our own wines from the top end of the block, mid slope between river to the west and the crest of the hill to the east. Here, topsoil gets shallower and paler, with more clay content. It is very low porosity and holds tightly to water through capillary action, making it less available to vine, while the clay pan restricts root volume and increases inter-vine competition.

5% is from a small block in the Bridge Pa Triangle, in the south west corner of the Heretaunga Plains, this low altitude inland area is well sheltered from the cooling afternoon sea breeze making this tour warmest site. Soils are low fertility, free draining, deep alluvial greywacke gravels, overlaid by a shallow topsoil of windblown loess and iron rich volcanic ash. The combination of climate and soil delivers wines with a subtle, rich aromatic profile , along with an underlying hot stone / ferrous minerality. The palate shows underlying power and complexity. It brings a touch of richness and structure to the finished blend.

2024 was an exceptional Chardonnay vintage in Hawke’s Bay, with warm sunny weather and regular summer rainfall events, the vines went into an extremely dry harvest season with healthy green canopies and good overall balance. Crops were naturally very low and this has translated to a natural underlying power in the wines. The warm growing season led to one of the earliest ever Chardonnay harvest in Hawke’s Bay and fruit was picked in pristine condition with vibrant flavours and fresh natural acidity.

Clone 1066 was harvested on the 26th of February at 22.1 brix. This is a relatively new clone to New Zealand that I refer to as the Uber-Mendoza, as it is even more susceptible than that famous clone, to hen and chicken (poor fruit set that results in many small, seedless berries, or chickens). The resulting meagre crop and high skin to juice ratio leads to full, flavourful wines, all kept in check by a taut line of natural acidity.

The first pick at the Tukituki valley block was the earlier ripening Dijon 95 clone at 20.3 brix on the 1st of March. This clone develops a ripe flavour spectrum and drops acidity ahead of accumulating sugar, and risks becoming overripe and flabby. However if picked on flavour and acid balance (rather than chasing sugar) it is capable of making beautifully elegant, subtle wines with underlying depth at modest alcohol levels. The last pick was the later ripening UCD clone 15 harvested at 22 brix on the 8th of March. This clone too is susceptible to hen and chicken, particularly on this cooler site, where it produces zesty, aromatic wines with an excellent balance between concentration and structure. Each parcel of fruit hand was harvested and gently whole bunch pressed and filled to barrel on full solids. No juice additions additions are made and the wine is 100% wild fermentation. Lees stirring is kept to a minimum, employed only to help the primary and malolactic fermentation to finish fully, after which time the barrels are sealed with a small sulphite addition and allowed to mature for a total of 11 months. Again this helps to preserve fruit freshness and sense of minerality, without any excessive heavy lees character.

After each individual barrel was evaluated for quality, we selected only the best for consideration for The Florilegium. The focus, to create something texturally and structurally complete and most importantly, eminently delicious! We are looking for balance of linearity and breadth, weight and structure, a fineness of texture with just enough grip, the focus is on the texture and shape of the wine on the palate. This is not a task we approach lightly. Laura and I started our blending session at 9am and finished at 11pm before resuming again for four hours the following day, fine tuning the exact proportion of each selected barrel. Once the blend was determined in the tasting room, the wine was racked in January 2025 and was allowed to mature further on light yeast lees in tank for 7 months. This was long enough to achieve natural clarity through settling only and wine was bottled without any fining, stabilisation or filtration. 20% new oak was used in the final blend.