Chardonnay 2022
A beautiful chardonnay. Light yellow-gold in colour, and a very open bouquet with floral notes (jasmine?), lemon curd, tangerine, stone and a hint of honey. A light buttery quality comes with gentle oak ageing for 11 months in mellow old barrels. It has great texture on the palate, bags of fruit with a firm core. It has enough trexture and weight to match fairly rich foods - from roast chicken to fish with a buttery sauce. The fruit came from Martin’s Lane in the Crouch valley, one of the very best places in England for grapes for still wine. Only just over 1000 bottles made.
13.5%. 75 cl bottle.
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More detail.
The fruit was picked in the Crouch valley, Essex in late October 2021 at around 90 oesechler (sugar level) - which is very ripe for English chardonnay, particularly in what was slightly tricky growing conditions in 2021. Four different clones were included in the batch, creating a complex profile. After a gentle press the wine was fermented in old oak using a variety of yeasts (again - for complexity) and matured on its lees for 13 months (contributing to a rich mouth feel), during which time malolactic fermentation converted sharper malic acid to the softer lactic acid. In the early months the wine was batonnaged (stirred with its lees) every week, and this reduced to once a month in spring. The wine was filtered before bottling to ensure stable long-term bottle ageing. It is closed with a Diam 5 cork, promising to be cork-taint free and having a consistent oxygen transfer rate for predictable long term cellar ageing.