Hunter's Marlborough Chardonnay 2022

Description

• French oak
• White peach
• Toasted hazelnut
• Refreshing acidity

"Moderately rich, flavoursome Chardonnay with vanilla, white peach and nectarine flavours dominating subtler nut, green apple and sizzled butter characters. High energy wine with refreshing acidity" Bob Campbell, Master of Wine, Real Review, Aug 2023

The wine has a complex, flinty nose with beautiful flavours of white peach and grapefruit characters with some citrus undertones. The palate is tightly structured and shows some bright stone fruit and toasted hazelnuts. Good balance from the toasty oak integration that compliments the silky texture on the palate. This wine drinks very well on release but will develop and evolve over the next 5-7 years.

After consecutive drought years the 2022 growing season started with some wet weather that carried on until late spring. Excellent fruit-set early December resulted in crop levels bigger than average. Ripe flavours at low sugar levels allowed us to pick early to retain the natural acidity in the juice compared to previous years. In what will ultimately go down as a ‘challenging’ vintage, unwavering vineyard preparation delivered excellent fruit condition and flavour concentration.

Chardonnay grapes were sourced from the Rapaura and Omaka sub regions of Marlborough. We have been using the same vineyards for many years which gives the wine a certain level of consistency. The grapes were picked by machine or hand depending on the block and pressed without sulphur to a stainless-steel vat. The cloudy juice was transferred into 500 litre French oak puncheons for fermentation. Indigenous yeasts were employed for alcoholic fermentation after which, 80% malolactic fermentation occurred. The wine was aged in puncheons on yeast lees for 12 months before racked off its lees ready for bottling.