‘Quartz’ is from the original plantings in 1988 and grown on solely where the quartz incidence in the soil is the greatest, giving the fruit extra complexity, finesse and intensity. This is emphatically a statement of its exact origin as well as being expressive of variety, handling and region. Here the ‘somewhereness’ of terroir, has full voice. The Quartz Block is approximately 1.2 acres in size. The characteristics are similar in the ‘Quartz’ Chardonnay to the ‘Kostas Rind’ Chardonnay but all aspects are amplified here yet remain in complete harmony. The winemaking is the same for both wines however Quartz sees few months longer in barrel and there is a higher percentage of new wood used, being around 35%. 2018 brought a few challenges that 2017 lacked and definitely some warmth during the start of summer. That said a perfect dry, cool autumn followed and the vintage was really dialed in with a bit more generosity than 2017.

The grapes were hand-harvested and then whole-bunch pressed directly to French barriques, of which roughly 1/3 is new. Fermentation occured without the addition of cultured yeast and the wine remains in barrel on yeast lees over winter with only a small amount of malolactic conversion taking place. It was racked after seven months aging, and returned to barrel for a further four months before bottling. It was bottled without fining, with a coarse filtration and a small addition of sulfur.