SV Chardonnay 'Big & Buttery' 2019

In 2019 we again used Delwyn and Doug Bell’s Clone 548 Chardonnay to craft the Big and Buttery. This is a dry-grown block in their vineyard on Back Ormond Road, just out of the city of Gisborne. The wine was fermented in 20% new American oak barrels, the other 80% a mix of seasoned American and French oak. Once the primary fermentation was finished, all of the barrels then went through a secondary malolactic fermentation. This imbues the wine with buttery notes. The wine went into barrel on 20th March 2019 and came out of barrel on 15th March 2020 – so 12 months in oak.