Chardonnay 2021

The Marlborist Chardonnay is a rich, dry elegant wine that is both intricate and textural with an enticing combination of roasted hazelnuts, brioche and lemon curd with hints of clove spice and vanilla. This is a finely balanced wine with a creamy palate underpinned by a long, citrus finish.

In order to retain maximum flavour and mouthfeel we have chosen to bottle this wine without fining or filtration.

Fruit was sourced from three exceptional vineyards; Clone 15 chardonnay from the historic Auntsfield Estate in the Southern Valleys, home to Marlborough’s first vineyard planted in 1873. The Lloyds Vineyard in Rapaura, a stony, free-draining site and one of Marlborough’s oldest, close-planted blocks of Mendoza clone chardonnay planted in 1994, and The Wrekin in the Brancott Valley - a beautiful, biodynamic and organic-certified hillside vineyard where clone 15 chardonnay is grown on clay loam soils. The combination of free-draining soils and naturally low yields allowed the vines to ripen small, golden bunches of intensely flavoured fruit.

Picked by hand over a week-long period in the middle of March, the fruit was harvested by hand and transported directly to the winery where most of the grapes were pressed directly to a mixture of French oak barrels and puncheons (15% new). A small portion was chilled overnight before pressing to oak the next morning.

Spontaneous fermentation by indigenous, ‘wild’ yeast, took place at ambient temperatures, a process that took several months to complete. Occasional lees stirring and a full malolactic fermentation occurred before the wine was transferred out of oak after 11 months, just in time for the 2022 harvest.

Each batch was left on lees and kept separate until May when the blend was assembled and then settled prior to bottling in July.