Decibel Testify Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2018

Description

• French oak
• Caramelised green apple
• Ripe lime
• Toasty brioche

Smoky nougat, gun flint, caramelised green apple with hints of toasty brioche and a ripe lime minerality. The palate has a soft fleshy approach, quickly evolving into a textural and bright mid-palate showing touches of citrus and oyster shell. A smokey sice gives way to a lengthy and elegant finish.

Hawke’s Bay lies on the East Coast of the North Island of New Zealand. The region enjoys dry summers with moderate, cool nights. This wine reflects a single vineyard Chardonnay from the Te Awanga hills right near the Pacific Ocean. Very cool nights combined with fantastic sunlight hours with cooling ocean breezes and slightly more mild temperature swings make for opulent fruit with amazing acidity. The portion of the vineyard chosen for this wine was Clone 15 and showed some ‘hen and chic’ berry variation. The 2017-18 season was very solid with naturally good cropping in the vineyard. The summer was relatively warm with some intermittent rain in March that had minimal effect on harvest decisions.

Hand picked on March 21st and transported in small bins to the winery where the fruit was whole bunch pressed straight into new French Oak barrels including some very large format barrels (650 litre and 600 litre). Certain barrels were inoculated with an organic yeast strain and a Burgundian yeast strain while some of the wine went through an indigenous fermentation. The wine was fermented on heavy solids and frequently stirred through primary and a full malolactic fermentation as well as once a week stirring through the Spring and following summer. The wine was racked to tank and prepared for bottling in February 2019.