This is a medium-bodied and elegant style of Hawkes Bay Chardonnay. The palate is soft and textured with flavours of peach, intermingled with hints of butter, grilled nuts and subtle oak spice.

Traditional methods allied with modern know how enable the winemakers to make wines with texture and complexity. Small batch winemaking prevails and open-topped concrete fermenters are used for the production of the hand-made red wines. Chardonnays are barrel fermented and red wines are barrel aged for a minimum of one year with the ‘Winemakers Reserve’ styles spending around 18 months in French oak barriques.

The fruit for this wine was sourced from vineyards planted in three of Hawkes Bay’s many sub regions. Bay View fruit provides ripe stonefruit characters while our vineyard sites inland on cooler river terraces above the Tutaekuri and Ngaruroro Rivers bring acidity and flinty grapefruit notes. Shoot thinning, leaf plucking and bunch thinning are all practised in the pursuit of quality.

The individual vineyard parcels were harvested separately in mid to late March and fermented in both tank and French oak barriques (40%). The finished wines were left on their yeast lees with regular stirring until blending and bottling. A small percentage of the wine underwent malolactic fermentation to naturally soften the wine.

Ideally suited to rich seafood dishes or white meats such as pork or chicken, but equally delicious as an aperitif or with hard cheeses.