Millton Te Arai Vineyard Gisborne Chenin Blanc 2015

Description

"The 2015 Te Arai Vineyard Chenin Blanc offers notes of dried apples and fresh straw with wafts of beeswax and baking bread. Light-bodied with a wonderfully crisp backbone cutting through the creamy/yeasty flavors, it finishes with a refreshing lift" Lisa Perrotti-Brown, The Wine Advocate, Feb 2017

"For one of New Zealands best known Chenin blancs, the grapes are hand-picked at up to four stages of ripening and fermented in tanks and large, 600-litre French oak casks. This fragrant, finely poised wine is very youthful, with slightly sweet peach, pear and spice flavours, woved with fresh acidity and a long finish. Worth cellaring" Michael Cooper, The Listener, Oct 2016

With aromas of fresh lime zest and fragrant gardenias, this wine is taut and vibrant in a way that will show its’ maturity over a very long time. Flavours of fine wool and bush honey are enhanced by quince and ripe bouche pear aromas with a tingling aftertaste.

Serve about 12ºC and allow to breathe for as long as you think best. Ageing potential is at least 10 years from date of release.

Over the years our determination to produce one of the world’s best wines from this variety is a seasonal challenge and a bottled fantasy. Up to four selections are made in the vineyard when we hand harvest the grapes. On the crush pad the stems are discarded as these grapes give up their juice very easily during the long slow press cycle. The juice is collected together and allowed to settle for only a short time as we need to keep the fine sediments, for it is here that all the nutrients lie which satisfy a well behaved fermentation. The fermentation and maturation take place in demi-muids (large 600 litre oak barrels) and stainless steel tanks. The wine matures in these vessels over time, and without the obtrusion of oak tannins, which would otherwise disrespect the subtle fruit aromas.

BioGro Certified Organic & Demeter Certified Biodynamic.