Chardonnay Technique

NOTE: My winemaking process is influenced by the vintage and fruit quality.

After picking, the fruit is cooled overnight, sorted, then whole bunch crushed and pressed to gain a higher solids to juice ratio.

The cool juice (no enzyme or SO2 added) is transferred straight to new and used French oak where I use a mix of demi-muids, puncheons and barriques depending on the wine. The juice is allowed to warm slowly, allowing natural vineyard yeast to do the fermenting.

The temperature peaks at about 25 degrees and no additions of nutrients etc. are made. The wine is sulfured lightly in oak once I feel it's ready for it - some MLF may occur but it’s not monitored or encouraged.

The wine spends 12 months in oak on full lees with no Battonage, after which the wine is transferred with all lees to stainless for further development and normally bottled around late May. The wine is racked clean and bottled via gravity, unfined and unfiltered.