Paritua Stone Paddock Hawke's Bay Chardonnay 2024

Description

Apricot, Nougat, Oak

The 2024 Stone Paddock Chardonnay is a lightly oaked wine. Showing ripe stonefruit and honeydew melon aromas with hints of nougat and marmalade. The gentle influence of battonage accentuates the sweet peach flavours, the texture is luscious with a full rich mid palate and zesty acidity accentuated by the mandarin citrus fruit finish. This Chardonnay is a refreshing style and with time it will grow to a well-rounded wine to be enjoyed now or cellar up to 2030 or longer.

The Chardonnay is planted on the most western part of the vineyard clones 95 and 15 are grown on a standard two cane canopy. Fruit exposure is limited to achieve excellent flavour and phenolics balance.

Several batches of machine harvested fruit were de-stemmed to press. After a slow and gentle pressing cycle the juice was settled and then fermented in stainless steel tanks at relatively warm temperatures, to minimize reductive or flinty notes. About half the wine was fermented in seasoned oak puncheons. We use selected yeast strains to create complexity and depth. The wine is kept on yeast lees for several months with regular lees stirring (battonage) to help develop complexity and richness, before blending, and filtration.

Food Pairing: Selfish, roast chicken, mild and creamy cheeses.