Felton Road Chardonnay Bannockburn 2018

Delicate citrus flowers, jasmine followed by hints of peach. A substantial but taut palate, honeysuckle, creamy stone fruit and citrus, mouth-filling and generous, but always with nervous tension, then tightening to a stony and saline finish. A definitive (maybe “The” definitive) example of our Bannockburn Chardonnay. Detailed, precise, long and very satisfying.

Felton Road farms four properties totalling 32 ha in the Bannockburn sub-region of Central Otago. Chardonnay is mostly grown on the Elms vineyard in Blocks 2, 6, 8 & 9; plus approximately 10% coming from Cornish Point vineyard. There are a range of altitudes and aspects with the soils mostly deep alluvial schist gravels. Meticulous summer management of a single vertical shoot positioned (VSP) canopy ensures even and early fruit maturity. Shoot thinning, shoot positioning, leaf plucking, bunch thinning and harvest are all carried out by hand to ensure optimum quality fruit. Cover crops are planted between rows to assist in vine balance and to improve soil health and general biodiversity.

Various clones of Chardonnay (Mendoza, B95, B548, UCD6) were carefully hand harvested from Cornish Point and The Elms vineyards. The grapes were whole bunch pressed with the juice flowing to barrel by gravity after overnight settling. Fermentation in French oak (mostly well-seasoned barrels with less than 10% new) with indigenous yeasts has produced a wine with considerable complexity. A long and complete indigenous malolactic fermentation with only periodic stirring of the lees (Batonnage), combined with 11 months on full lees; has softened the acid for a rich and complex mouthfeel. In accordance with our non-interventionalist approach to winemaking, this wine was not fined or filtered after spending 13 months total in barrel.