Tasting: A rich nose with marmalade, ripe grapefruit, cedary oak and biscuity characters. Full, rich, sweet palate with ripe, concentrated fruit backed by generous oak. Some savoury/biscuity characters with toasty vanilla and a touch of nuttiness. Powerful, complex and well-weighted with a round, creamy, lingering finish.
Wine Making: Intensive manual viticulture from bud running, leaf plucking and thinning encourage optimum ripeness and flavour development. The grapes for the Reserve Chardonnay were hand picked and whole bunch pressed in order to achieve the finest quality juice. The juice was then wild yeast fermented in a selection of French oak barriques (20% new oak) where the wines lees were stirred once per month and aged for 11 months before blending and bottling. A partial 50% malolactic fermentation has added to the complexity of the finished wine.