2005 Chardonnay

Aromas of lime, flint, and stonefruit, meld with tropical characters on the nose. The finely tuned palate is layered with vanilla and baked bread, along with our classic Martinborough Vineyard beeswax character. Our winemaking style focuses on producing an elegant, finely balanced, varietal Chardonnay that shows its best with some time in bottle.

Vineyard
Our first block of Chardonnay was planted in 1980; this original block of Mendoza clone produces an extremely low yield, with small berries that consistently give full ripe concentrated fruit. Five other clones of Chardonnay from our vineyards on the Martinborough Terrace make up the blend and contribute to give a complex mix of fruit characters.

The Martinborough region has a cool, maritime climate along with other beneficial climatic drivers including a rain shadow, one of the country's largest diurnal temperature differentials, windy springs and a long warm ripening period through autumn. All this results in a natural low-vigour site regulating crops and enabling high quality, consistent, ripe fruit.

Winemaking
The fruit is carefully sorted in the vineyard during hand harvesting and then whole-bunch pressed.
The juice is lightly settled then fermented in French oak barriques using indigenous yeasts. The oak is carefully chosen for elegance to complement the fine structure of the wine. Aged in barrels on lees for 12 months, the wine undergoes 85% malolactic and regular lees stirring. achieve the best flavour and acid balance. This wine is estate bottled.