Coopers Creek Swamp Reserve Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2021

Description

Cream, Grapefruit, Oak

Pale in the glass as a young wine, but will develop pale gold tints with time in the bottle. Year after year the fruit from this vineyard exhibits ripe lemon and grapefruit characters. This is interwoven with flinty note along with subtle oak, lees and MLF derived creaminess. Harmony and balance have become two of the hallmarks of our Swamp Reserve style. This wine has fineness and structure, yet is also incredibly complex and long. Our Reserve Chardonnays drink beautifully after about 24 to 30 months, and then cellar out to around five years in the correct environment.

Swamp Reserve Chardonnay is made from the top block of the Middle Road Vineyard, where the vines produce the ripest and cleanest fruit. The grapes were harvested on March 18th 2021 and transported to Auckland, where they were pressed lightly to reduce phenolic extraction. The juice was settled before being transferred to a mix of new and seasoned (40:60) French oak barriques. Primary and Malolactic fermentation took place in barrel, with the wine aging a further 10 months on yeast lees. Barrels were individually selected for the blend based on their fruit purity and aromatic excellence. The blend was lightly filtered and bottled on November 2nd 2022.

Food Pairing: Full flavoured Chardonnays are great food wines, especially richly flavoured meat dishes such as lamb, pork and duck, and seafood - crayfish, salmon and trout. Accompanying sauces could include citrus, apple, nuts, mushrooms and aromatic herbs.