Auntsfield Estate produces Chardonnay with finesse, restraint, honed focus and a textured mineral structure. The distinctive characteristics of ripeness, texture and minerality – qualities unique to the ancient Greywacke rock and Loess clay soils found on the property – are certainly apparent. Only the best fruit is hand-picked and hand-sorted into small picking bins where fermentation naturally starts in the vineyard. As for the vintage, it was a cool season with low cropping levels. Slow ripening allowed retention of intense fruit flavors and a fresh, elegant palate.
The fruit for this wine was hand harvested and whole bunch pressed, allowing intensely flavored juice to be pressed from the grape. The indigenous yeast fermentation followed with a moderate amount of grape solids in French oak barriques, followed by extended barrel aging on yeast lees. The lees were stirred up in cask for the first few weeks and then the wine was left to age quietly for 11 months in total. The barrels were gently racked to tank and bottled with a light filtration and hit of sulfur. No fining.