Briar Ridge, Briar Hill Chardonnay, 2023

This wine will develop in the bottle in the medium term. Bottled unfined and unfiltered. Planted in 1994 with the I10V1 clone, this clone is a slightly later ripening chardonnay clone, but renowned for developing concentrated flavour and retaining natural acidity. Handpicked and sorted fruit was whole bunch pressed to a stainless-steel tank. Cold settled for 12 hours before racking to 100% New French oak Puncheons taking most of the fruit solids for fermentation. Fermented at 23-25 degrees Celsius with ambient yeasts and left on full yeast lees for 15 months before being stabilised. No Finings or Filtration. The Soil is a combination of duplex loams over shale (this hill has ridge running through it known as the Fenestella Ridge, which is roughly 450-million-year-old fossilised marine remains which forms the shale). These vines are 28 years old.