Esk Valley, Hawkes Bay

Chardonnay

This wine is derived from fruit sourced from vineyard sites around the Hawkes Bay. Vineyards in the north at Bay View provide the finished wine with ripe tropical fruit flavours while the sites on terraces above the Tutaekuri River at Puketapu, add a more flinty, grapefruit note. These sites also provide the natural acidity to the blended wine. Shoot thinning, leaf plucking and bunch thinning are all practiced on these vineyard sites in the pursuit of quality.

WINEMAKING

The individual vineyard parcels were kept separate and fermented in a mix of oak barriques and stainless tanks. Cultured and indigenous yeasts were utilised for fermentation and the finished wines were left on lees until blending and bottling. Forty-nine percent of the wine underwent malolactic fermentation to naturally lower the acidity.

WINEMAKER'S COMMENT

This is a full bodied but elegant style of Hawkes Bay Chardonnay, exhibiting ripe stone fruit and melon characters, intermingled with hints of butter, grapefruit and oak. The wine is rich in the mouth, complex and long.  

FOOD MATCH

Ideally suited to rich seafood or white meat dishes.

IDEAL DRINKING

Enjoy upon release or for three years following vintage.