Tasting Notes for Seresin Chardonnay 2021 from the Winery

A tantalising, complete expression of Chardonnay that brings together both savoury structure, elegance and depth of concentration. Considered picking and use of oak has created a wine that leans towards the more complex, savoury styles of Chardonnay. Lifted mealy, flinty notes on the nose, develop into a smoky complex flavours on the palate. The wine remains poised with a slaty, mineral acidity on the finish and is bone dry.

Winemaking

Certified organic and biodynamic fruit was handpicked in three batches, between the 11-18th March. Picked by clone - commencing with Mendoza, then Clone 15 and finally Clone 95, each batch was directly whole bunch pressed. The Mendoza was pressed straight to barrel, both the Clone 15 and Clone 95 were pressed to tank for overnight settling before being racked to barrel. All batches went through 100% wild fermentation, and subsequently 100% malolactic fermentation. After seven months in French oak, both puncheons and barriques, the batches were blended, filtered and bottled. The resulting percentage of new oak in the blend is 20%.

Viticulture

The fruit comes from both our clay rich hillside Raupo Creek vineyard in the Omaka Valley, which has a gentle north-west facing aspect, and also our home Noa vineyard that is settled in the western end of the Wairau Valley.

Vintage

After a mild winter, there was a period of quite heavy frost events, that kept the vineyard team on their toes ensuring all of the fragile young shoots were protected. After overcoming this, growth was great and consistent across the whole vineyard. However during flowering a combination of lower temperatures and rainfall did not allow all of the flowers to set, and culminated in many flowers setting at different times. This resulted in markedly small bunches and a good deal of hen and chicken throughout the vineyard, particularly in our Chardonnay and Pinot Noir plots.

During the last piece of the growing season, the weather was on our side and provided beautiful summer days yet cold nights, that aided in retaining decent acidity, and extremely clean fruit which enabled the team to make picking decisions at exactly the right moment for each plot on the vineyard. We will remember this vintage as being one of the best yet for overall quality - full of flavours but very light on yields.

Wine Details

pH - 3.28

TA - 6.7g/L

RS - 0.6g/L

Alc - 13.0%

Total SO2 - 53ppm

Vineyard - Raupo Creek

Clones - 15, 95 and Mendoza

Plant Density - 3300 per ha

Yield - 5-6 Tonnes/ hectare Oak - 7 months, 20% new

Certified Organic

Suitable for Vegans

(SKU: SR_CHA_21)