Greywacke Marlborough Chardonnay 2016

Description

• French oak
• Ginger & smoked almonds
• White peach & citrus
• Struck flint

"Elegant, lively chardonnay with ginger, toasted nut, white peach, citrus-lime and some struck flint savoury character. A clever interplay of fruit and winemaking artefact" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Feb 2020

"Bright, light to mid-yellow colour, with a pronounced burnt matchstick aroma, intense smoky sufides - almost like an electrical short. The wine has good intensity and palate focus, a long lasting finish, too. A very good wine but you need to like this very smoky, burnt-match style" Huon Hooke, Real Review Mar 2020

An enticing combination of pink grapefruit, burnt orange and white nectarine mingles with more savoury aromas of smoked almonds, hazelnut meringue and the heady fragrance of freshly cut hay. The mealy savouriness carries through onto a rich, textural palate, evidence of this wine’s low-intervention winemaking. An intricate bone-dry style that is highly concentrated with a distinct flintiness, tight structure and crisp citrussy finish.

The grapes for this wine are primarily the low-yielding Mendoza clone, known for its concentration of flavour and crisp acidity; the balance is Clone 95. The majority of fruit was sourced from the lower reaches of the Brancott Valley and Fairhall, grown in gravelly, clay-loam soils, with the remainder coming from Renwick and Rapaura, grown in young alluvial soils containing high proportions of New Zealand’s ubiquitous greywacke river stones. The vineyards were mostly trained using a two-cane VSP (vertical shoot positioning) trellis with the balance on the divided Scott Henry canopy management system.

The vineyards were hand-picked separately at high ripeness levels and whole-bunch pressed using very low maceration press cycles. Some of the fruit was pressed directly to barrel, the balance was lightly settled and then racked to barrel. The juice went through a natural indigenous yeast fermentation in French oak barriques (20% new), the final phase continuing for many months. The wine received occasional lees stirring and underwent a complete malolactic fermentation. It was transferred out of oak after 18 months and bottled in December 2017 with an alcohol of 14.2%, pH 3.3 and acidity of 6.4 g/l.