Mahi Twin Valleys Marlborough Chardonnay 2022

Mahi Twin Valleys Marlborough Chardonnay 2022This wine shows an array of fruit characters, ranging from citrus through to tropical notes. This is complemented by some secondary characters from the natural yeast ferments and some barrel aging. The palate has an elegant structure with a creamy, textural mid palate and a long finish. Mahi, meaning our work, our craft, began in 2001, fulfilling a dream of ours. After 15 vintages it was time to do our own thing. With a strong focus on single vineyard

This wine shows an array of fruit characters, ranging from citrus through to tropical notes. This is complemented by some secondary characters from the natural yeast ferments and some barrel aging. The palate has an elegant structure with a creamy, textural mid-palate and a long finish.

Mahi, meaning ‘our work, our craft’, began in 2001, fulfilling a dream of ours. After 15 vintages it was time to do our own thing. With a strong focus on single-vineyard wines, and now backed up by a series of premium regional wines from Marlborough, the idea behind Mahi is to respect and promote the individuality of the various vineyards. The Mahi symbol represents the strength, life, and growth of the native New Zealand frond (fern), with the understanding that wine should never be rushed to bottle, respecting its ability to evolve naturally over time.

This year, our 22nd, was again distinctive and again it was early and some serious rainfall at veraison meant that the berries were bigger this year, so the crops were slightly higher.
Starting on March the 10th we harvested quickly and finished the earliest ever. It was not a hot vintage, so the flavours were retained, but we felt the grapes were fragile so picked quickly as things ripened. We saw early on that it was a bigger year and, with cooler easterlies winds predominating, we decided to drop some bunches early, up to 18 bunches a vine in one parcel!? This really helped as the vines managed to get the remaining bunches ripe and we were happy with the health of the fruit. April saved us also as it only had 19% of normal rainfall and we nearly had the last month of no rain, which was so good. Slightly lower sugars this year means the wine is perhaps more elegant and refined but it still shows the texture we are looking for.

The aim for this Chardonnay is to retain a fresh structure rather than producing a wine that is too broad. The clone and site help with this, but also the picking decisions also work to retain acidity in the glass. This wine comes from a small parcel in the Twin Valley Vineyard, located in the Fareham Lane area of Marlborough. The vineyard is at the western end of the Wairau Valley, at the junction with the Waihopai, and is on the top terrace. The upper terrace along the Wairau has a more complex soil, a great mixture of silt, clay and stones that give drainage but also some water-holding to help the vines through the dry periods. Being some distance from the sea the climate is also cooler. The grapes therefore typically ripen more slowly and retain an interesting mineral character. The vines were cropped low to ensure ripeness and palate richness. The grapes were then whole-cluster pressed and the high-solids juice taken straight to French barriques for fermentation with indigenous yeast. After 15 months in oak, we felt the balance was correct and gently took the wine from barrel.