2010 Bromley Chardonnay

Tasting Note

Good colour of straw with some green hues. Grapefruit, green melon and subtle nougat dominate the nose. Palate is about structure and balance. Initially citrus rind and green melon hit you then richness from the oak and malo take over in the form of nougat and cedar. To finish, cleansing acidity and textural tannins that hang around. The wine begs for food in the form of fish and juicy white meats, yet drinks well straight up. Drink now and over the next decade.

Winemaking

The fruit for this wine was sourced from the Grassy Point vineyard on the Bellarine Peninsula.
Harvest occurred on a mild day and the fruit was delivered to the winery in the late afternoon. The picking bins were placed in a refrigerated shipping container and chilled down over night then the following morning the fruit was whole bunch pressed.
Following settling for several days the wine was racked to one new 500 Litre French oak puncheon and the remaining 700 litres to a stainless steel vessel for fermentation.
The puncheon was allowed to ferment naturally with indigenous yeasts and the stainless steel vessel was inoculated with Active Dry Wine yeast CY3079.
Both ferments proceeded well with minimal intervention required.
Post ferment the barrel was topped up from the stainless steel vessel and allowed to go through malolactic fermentation. The stainless steel vessel was sulphured to inhibit malolactic fermentation.
Both components of the wine were stirred intermittently throughout the maturation process and remained on lees for 10 months.
Finally the two components were racked, blended, stabilised, lightly fined with skim milk and filtered for bottling.