Colour
Light, watery golden appearance with greenish tints.
Aroma
Lightly aromatic nose of white fruits.
Palate
Typical of early picked chardonnay with extremely elegant white fruit flavours, wonderful small bead and leaving a clean acidic taste in the mouth.
Cellaring
The low pH and wonderful balance of the wine means it will last for 10 – 20 years, gaining in complexity as it ages.
Vintage
Vintages continued to get earlier and we picked the chardonnay in mid-February – our earliest start so far. The weather was excellent and the fruit was sound.
Vinification
The base wine was whole bunch pressed and after 48 hours cold settling it was racked to a stainless-steel tank where it underwent its primary and malo-lactic fermentations. After protein (Bentonite) and cold stabilization, the base wine was transferred to the Lodestone winery, where Michael Sykes undertook the traditional champagne approach of a secondary fermentation in each bottle. At disgorgement 7.5 g/L of sugar was added.
General Comments
As of November 2018 this wine has had three separate disgorgements, the last in February 2018. It is an excellent aperitif and as some commentators think small bubbles a sign of quality, this is a very high-quality champagne style of wine, indeed as the bubbles are tiny. In blind tastings, it compares very favourably with non-aldehydic styles of champagne, such as Pol Roger.
