| Vintage
The 2006 vintage will go down in recorded history as the coolest ever. Certainly Perth had the coolest summer for some 50 years. In light of this most harvest dates were at least one month later than usual so it is what we would describe as an atypical vintage. The positives have been that flavour ripeness tracked beautifully with rising sugar levels and acid retention was also higher giving crisp, clean wines, which will cellar well in the short to medium term.
Harvest
The fruit for this wine was machine-harvested in February of 2006 during the cool of night.
Oak Treatment
12 months in one-year old French barriques.
Winemaking Summary
The fruit for this wine comes from our Estate 20 year old Gingin clone vines grown in the Wilyabrup sub-region of Margaret River. All fruit was machine harvested and crushed. The resultant juice was cold-settled prior to racking to oak for fermentation. Fermentation took place in cool cellar conditions after which some 20% of the wine underwent MLF. Batonage was utilised to add richness and stability to the resultant wine. After twelve months of barrel maturation the wine was blended, fined, stabilised and sterile-filtered to bottle.
Colour
Mid-straw with lemon tints.
Nose
An elegant and restrained Chardonnay showing classic white stone fruit nuances and subtle vanillin French oak.
Palate
A fine-boned Chardonnay relying on cool vintage fruit and gentle winemaking artefact to give a palate driven by fruit characters as described above with the weight and body expected of a top-end Chardonnay. Balancing acidity keeps the whole package in check with a clean and austere finish ensuring the freshness and vitality of this wine. |
