Auntsfield Single Vineyard Marlborough Chardonnay 2022

Auntsfield Single Vineyard Marlborough Chardonnay 2022"Elegantly complex and enticing, the bouquet shows apricot, lemon peel, nougat, roasted cashew, and oatmeal nuances. It's followed by a beautifully flowing palate that's finely textured and lingering. Wonderfully composed and balanced, with a multi layered mouthfeel, it is engaging and highly appealing. At its best: now to 2032" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2024 Rich straw gold. Intense and complex, this wine displays aromas of peach skin, mandarin peel,

"Elegantly complex and enticing, the bouquet shows apricot, lemon peel, nougat, roasted cashew, and oatmeal nuances. It's followed by a beautifully flowing palate that's finely textured and lingering. Wonderfully composed and balanced, with a multi-layered mouthfeel, it is engaging and highly appealing. At its best: now to 2032" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2024

Rich straw gold. Intense and complex, this wine displays aromas of peach skin, mandarin peel, and lemon tart, integrated with brioche and apricot nougat aromas from the French oak influence. Ripe and intense stone fruit flavours of peach and dried apricot complimented by subtle French oak influence giving hints of roasted hazelnut and fig. A tight and linier palate with underlying minerality concludes with seamless length.

Auntsfield continues the proud heritage of Marlborough’s first vineyard and winery established in 1892. Our Single Vineyard wines are made from grapes grown at Auntsfield Estate. Each wine shows the distinctive characteristics of ripeness, texture and minerality - qualities unique to the ancient Greywacke rock and Loess clay soils of the vineyard. Auntsfield produces Chardonnay with finesse, restraint, honed focus and a textured mineral structure. Only the best fruit is used with the resulting wine showing a real sense of place that showcases the mineral structure of the old clay soils of the vineyard.

The 2022 season had regular rainfall and excellent growing conditions for the vines. This resulted in strong canopies but a smaller than average crop of grapes to harvest. The wet spring period over flowering lead to small berries and bunches, but rewarded vineyards who strive for lower cropping levels through meticulous canopy management. There was a slow progression into Autumn with a drawn-out ripening period where the small crop of fruit reached optimum ripeness.

The fruit for this wine was hand harvested and whole bunch pressed. The juice was fermented in French oak barrels with indigenous (from Auntsfield vineyard) yeast. Maturation on yeast lees allowed the oak flavours to subtly integrate with the fruit to develop depth and complexity in the wine.