The home of Chardonnay is a long way from the rolling hills of the Pyrenees Ranges in Victoria, but it is possible to bring the best clones of the variety to the region. A single block of 500 vines was planted to clones 95, 96, 78 and Penfolds 58 at our Degraves Road vineyard in 2005. The wines from these clones have been shown to perform the best wherever they are planted.
Fruit was hand harvested late February and gently crushed with several hours skin contact. The fruit was then basket pressed with juice settled for 24 hours before racking into new French oak. Fermentation utilised natural yeast from the vineyard initially, then over seeded with QA23. The ferment was slow and cool and went to dryness in 12 days. Malolactic ferment was utilised in 50% of the wine which has lifted aromatics of stone fruits and a clean, balanced dry palate. A wine with 100% new oak it easily handles the expectations and has achieved a wonderfully balanced, textural, and complex finish. Matured for 12 months on yeast lees the wine is an outstanding example of single vineyard Chardonnay from the Pyrenees.
