Matawhero Church House Gisborne Barrel Fermented Chardonnay 2019

Description

• Toasty oak
• Ripe peach & melon
• Butterscotch
• Full-bodied & rich

"This is beautifully fruited and fragrant on the nose showing rockmelon, apricot, vanilla, hazelnut and brioche characters, followed by a wonderfully flavoursome palate that's succulent and creamy. It's gorgeous proportioned and harmonious with complex flavours, finishing long and satisfying. At its best: now to 2024" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Jul 2021

"Youthful, ripe, vibrant, fresh and fruity with aromas of fresh sweet grapefruit, new season peach, yellow apple and oak with new wood, brazil nut and fresh vanilla custard thoughts. On the palate - weighty, dry, full-bodied and youthful. Flavours mirror the nose. Textures are driven by warming alcohol, medium+ acidity and new wood tannins. A very young wine so best cellared for a time to settle and meld the flavours together. Best drinking from mid to late 2021 through 202" Cameron Douglas MS, Jul 2021

Lovely golden colour. Ripe peach and melon layered with butterscotch and toasty oak notes. The palate is big, rich and full with great length and weight.

The grapes for this elegant Gisborne Chardonnay are grown from two select parcels from the Briant and Tietjen vineyards. The wine is made from a mixture of Chardonnay clones, creating a wine with more layers of flavour and complexity; 50% Mendoza, 35% ENTAV-INRA 548 and 15% ENTAV-INRA. Premium Burgundies use 809 as a blending component to give them a lovely aromatic lift and so winemakes apply this principle to this wonderfully layered Chardonnay. The vines achieved good ripeness and with low yields came excellent flavours and weight to the fruit.

Harvested in the cool of the morning, the fruit for this wine reached superb ripeness after another warm summer in Gisborne. A portion of the grapes were hand-picked and a portion machine harvested, gently pressed and slightly clarified prior to fermentation. The juice was inoculated with the indigenous yeast from this vineyard, which provided layers of flavour and aroma complexity, as well as a wonderful palate texture. The juice was cool fermented till dry and then underwent full malolactic fermentation and spent 4 months on lees before being stabilized and bottled. A portion of the blend is fermented and aged in a combination of American and European barrels. The barrels selected here are from the parcels we don’t deem quite good enough to make the Irwin status but are still of exceptional quality to even be considered! The wine also undergoes full malolactic fermentation.

Food Pairing: Enjoy with seafood, white meats and cheeses.