JULES TALKS CHARDONNAY
What do you look for in the perfect Chardonnay? Jules explains what she looks for when making her Marlborough Chardonnay.
FOOD MATCH
Perfect with classic fish and chips or hot buttered crayfish. Or try it with grilled chicken burgers with or satay chicken skewers topped with fresh spring onion.
WINEMAKERS NOTES
The fashion for chardonnay used to be the big, buttery, oaky wine. Do we care for fashion? Pah! This is a wine that is fresh and has great fruit flavours that expresses the vineyard it was plucked from.
AROMA & FLAVOUR
Delicious aromas of red apple and white nectarine are interwoven with grapefruit pith and notes of candied mango. These are supported by nougat notes and complex hints of brazil nuts and toffee. This wine is soft and smooth with a lovely polished feel. Plenty of wild fermentation has made it textural and complex whilst retaining fresh, bright acidity. The flavours are mouthfilling and give way to a long, juicy finish.
VINTAGE NOTES
The season started cool and unsettled, but temperatures quickly warmed up leading to an early, quick flowering. The last substantial rainfall of summer was on 17th December and after that Marlborough dried out. This wasn’t obvious early in January as ash drifting across from the Australian bushfires resulted in a lot of cooler cloudy weather to keep the vineyards green. However, the season warmed up heading into February, . In the last week or so the nights cooled off, allowing extra time for flavour development heading into harvest. Apart from the stress caused by virus, the actual harvest was a breeze with some of the best condition fruit we have ever seen.
VINIFICATION
The fruit for this wine came from the beautiful Meadowbank Estate vineyard
in the Taylor’s Pass area of Marlborough’s Southern Valleys. The grapes were
harvested carefully by hand and machine, then taken to the winery for fermentation
using a variety of techniques. Whole cluster pressed portions went directly into
French oak barrels for a wild ferment on high solids. Other portions were tank
fermented and some were cold settled and partially tank fermented and then
sent to barrels mid-ferment. The yeast lees in the barrels were stirred frequently
over a nine month period to add body and complexity, and the wine underwent
full malolactic fermentation to lower the acid profile. After its extended nap in
the barrels, the various parcels were pumped back to tank, blended then bottled.