Mt Difficulty

AWARDS

93pts/5stars, Sam Kim Wine Orbit 2024

ABOUT

“Juicy yellow grapefruit, white peach and a flinty, mineral edge on the nose. citrus and green apple fruit flavours, sea spray and chalk. The palate is fresh and lively, unencumbered by too much oak, and given some weight from the lees aging in con-crete egg tanks. A Fine, focused and deli-cious Chardonnay.” Greg Lane, Winemaker

CELLARING POTENTIAL

Roaring Meg Chardonnay is at it’s best within one to seven years of release.

VINTAGE 2022

2022 swung the pendulum again for Central Otago. This season was characterised by a very warm summer, punctuated by vital rain events, culminating in a bumper crop that was harvested 1-2 weeks ahead of long term average. The benign, warm flowering conditions in December resulted in excellent fruit set and healthy canopies that galloped through a dry January. They were replenished by rain in February before harvest began in mid-March and was wrapped up by mid-April.

VINEYARD

The grapes for this wine come from our Silver Tussock vineyard in the Pisa sub-region as well as our Mansons Farm and Templars Hill vineyards in Bannockburn, Central Otago which are all managed by our viticulture team.

WINEMAKING CONSIDERATIONS

The fruit was picked over the last week of March with a mixture of hand and machine harvesting. The fruit was handled in an oxidative fashion, with the majority destemmed and pressed to concrete eggshaped tanks. Some parcels were whole bunch pressed to retain fresh acidity. Press cuts were made at 550L/t, and the pressings juice kept separate. We fermented 70% of the juice in egg, with the balance to French Oak barriques, 5% new, all with full solids using indigenous yeasts. Whilst maturing, minimal battonage was carried out. 60% of the wine went through malolactic fermentation in spring, after which the barriques were stirred for a period. The wine was racked and filtered before being bottled in July of 2023.

Vegan friendly