150 Church Road,
Taradale,
Hawke's Bay
New Zealand
Ph: +64 6 844 2053
Fax: +64 6 844 3378
info@churchroad.co.nz
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©2006
Grape Variety: Chardonnay 100%
An appealing steely, mineral bouquet with hints of biscuit, yeastiness, toast and restrained Chardonnay fruit.
Soft and harmonious on the palate with an attractive freshness. The key is all round complexity coupled with a long, lingering savoury oak aftertaste.
The key to this wine is in its ability to develop slowly and gracefully with time in the bottle. This wine is attractive now, especially as a complement to food, but further careful cellaring will see the wine develop more complexity and reach full potential.
The high heat and warm, dry autumn conditions in Hawke's Bay bring Chardonnay to full ripeness with excellent flavour concentration. This is particularly apparent on the river terraces and flats where low vigour soils force higher sugars and lower crops.
Careful canopy management ensures excellent berry exposure to sunlight, enriching varietal characteristics and producing ripe fruit flavours.
In addition, low crop levels enabled the vines to optimise the Hawke's Bay sunshine resulting in intense flavour concentration.
1994 was an excellent year for Chardonnay. Although growing temperatures were consistent with the 30 year average, it was an extremely dry year with 35% less rainfall. This stressed the vines which responded with a small crop of grapes with concentrated flavours.
Winemaker: Tony Prichard
The chosen production process followed "Burgundian" practices as closely as possible to create a style distinctive from classic Church Road Chardonnay.
This started with hand picking and whole bunch pressing of the very ripe fruit harvested from the Phoenix Estate vineyard. Barrel fermentation of the cloudy juice and malolactic fermentation followed in a mixture of new and older French oak barriques.
The wine spent 12 months on the yeast in the barrels, adding biscuit and nut characters.
Alcohol: 13.3%.
Total Acidity: 6.5 grams per litre as tartaric
* currently available vintage(s)
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