THE MARLBORIST CHARDONNAY 2022

Winery notes (2022 Vintage)
"The Marlborist Chardonnay is a rich, dry elegant wine that is both intricate and textural with an enticing combination of roasted hazelnuts, brioche and golden-flesh nectarine 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. This minimal intervention wine may throw a sediment which is perfectly natural and completely harmless.

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 Wrekin in the Brancott Valley, a beautiful biodynamic and organic-certified hillside vineyard where clone 95 Chardonnay is grown on clay loam soils, and Fairhall Vineyard on the southern side of the Wairau Valley, where old Mendoza clone Chardonnay vines are grown on stony, alluvial soils. The combination of free-draining soils and naturally low yields allowed the vines to ripen small, golden bunches of intensely flavoured fruit.

Picked over three days in the middle of March, the fruit was transported directly to the winery where most of the grapes were whole-bunch pressed to a mixture of French oak barrels and puncheons (30% new). A 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 2023 harvest. Each batch was left on lees and kept separate until June when the blend was assembled and settled prior to bottling in July."

Rated Excellent & 94/100 Cameron Douglas MS, September 2023 (2022 Vintage)
"An attractive bouquet, youthful, complex and new with aromas of nectarine and apricot, red apple and peach. Barrel spice and a gentle wood smoke quality add complexity and breadth. Dry with plenty of weight housed in a satin-cream texture and contrasted by fine tannins and acidity. As the wine opens out on the palate the flavours of fruit and wood spice along with lees becomes a little louder. A fleshy and salivating finish. Best drinking from late 2024 through 2029."