Dr. Edge’s Chardonnay is sourced from two growers, Meadowbank (30%) in the Derwent Valley in the south of the island, and Chartley Estate (70%) from the Tamar Valley in the north. Usually, Peter is able to get more Chardonnay from the Meadowbank Vineyard, but unfortunately it was an incredibly low yielding year in the Derwent Valley for Chardonnay. Still, this wine certainly packs a punch and will last for decades, if that’s your thing. Like with all of the Dr. Edge wines, Peter likes to focus on blends of sites to really encapsulate the entirety of the vintage across Tasmania. Plus, this way, he gets to play with the percentages of each block to bring out the elements he desires, which are consistently drive, energy, and texture. The idea behind this Chardonnay was to make something that is by no means an orange wine, but one that sees a little bit of whole clusters during fermentation and aging in order to bring structure and length. Peter does this because he doesn’t want to rely too heavily on tannin and structure from oak; he prefers to let the grapes and stems themselves do that work. The 2023 vintage saw the addition of a single clay amphora during fermentation and aging.

The grapes were hand picked then whole-bunch pressed straight to a single 1000L clay amphora and French oak puncheons, keeping 10% whole clusters in the amphora portion only. The wine stayed there for 9 months, through spontaneous fermentation and aging on the lees. The clusters were pressed and the lots were blended to tank before being bottled with just a gentle cross-flow filter and sulfur addition. No fining.