Plantagenet's Great Southern Chardonnay
A different approach all together for Chardonnay, but very important for the style we are trying to achieve. Harvesting for our oaked style is all done by hand, which allows us to chill the fruit down to about 5ºC and “whole bunch press” it.Whole bunch pressing does a number of things; it minimizes phenolic extraction which reduces bitterness and compounds that could cause the wine to go brown; it minimizes the amount of solids that come out of the wine.
This is important because at this point the juice is on its own. No Yeast, no other additions, we just wait for the wild yeast to start fermenting and watch it closely every day. Why wild Yeast? We are trying to make Chardonnay with complexity, that sparks interest, that makes people think. Using wild yeast is equivalent to using 4 different kinds of yeast, it provides complexity and wonderful palate textures. It also means we avoid Malolactic fermentation which can make the palate look very fat and flabby, instead we retain a wonderful fine acid structure.
Oak is a combination of new, 1 & 2 year old barrels in equal amounts, and is a blend of cooprages that offer a subtle oak influence. This marries well with the delicate chardonnay that we get from our cool climate, and does not over power the fruit.
After 8 months in oak, our Chardonnay is blended (on an individual barrel basis) and bottled, ready for release in 3 to 4 months. This style of Chardonnay we believe hits its straps at 2 years of age, and continues for another 3 years to look fantastic.
