'Big & Buttery' SV Gisborne Chardonnay 2019
A blast from the past?
01023
Select Vineyards Wines, Gisborne, Chardonnay and Blends
A blast from the past?
01023
Select Vineyards Wines, Gisborne, Chardonnay and Blends
In 2019 we again used Doug Bell’s Clone 548 Chardonnay to craft the Big and Buttery. This is a dry-grown block in their certified organic 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. It was bottled 30th June and 1st July.
Alc | 13% |
Acid | 7.4g/L |
Res sugar | <1g/L |
pH | 3.37 |
Colour: | Pale gold in the glass at bottling, but will slowly deepen with time. |
Bouquet: | Stonefruit and melon backed by vanillary oak and a buttered pop-corn character from the MLF. |
Palate: | Big, rich and weighty, yet with elegance and finesse. |
5 Stars/93 Points | Wine Orbit, Jan 2021 |
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