Winery & Vintage Info
Petaluma's flagship yellow label showcases the distinctiveness of our distinguished sites in Clare Valley, Adelaide Hills and Coonawarra South Australia. These wines can be enjoyed upon their release however, they reward those patient enough to carefully cellar them and enjoy with generous bottle age.
The “distinguished site” vineyards in the Piccadilly Valley, the coldest wettest grape growing region in South Australia received wonderful soaking winter rains, before a very dry spring and summer.
As can happen in very dry years, the Adelaide Hills had a widespread severe frost on the 27th of November, incredibly late in the season. This did a huge amount of damage throughout the region, burning leaves and fruit in many vineyards. Some blocks were devastated and were not subsequently picked.
Fortunately our Piccadilly Valley vineyards were spared the damage, and then received 80 mm of rain in late January and a further 40 mm in early February, beautifully setting the vines up to ripen their abundant crop.
The perfectly ripe fruit was then hand picked, starting on the 3rd of March in the Mt. Bonython vineyard, Ted’s, and finishing in the Tiers Vineyard on the 13th of March. The fruit was transported from the Piccadilly Valley to our winery near Woodside, before most was destemmed, crushed and pressed (94%). A small portion (6%) from Shed Block in Summertown was chilled and then whole bunch pressed.
The juices were cold settled for a week and then seeded with our chosen yeast strains to conduct the alcoholic fermentation. The seeded juices were then transferred to barrel.
The oak used for the Petaluma Chardonnay Piccadilly Valley 2016 was mainly barriques (225 litres) from our long term favoured cooper Dargaud et Jaegle, with the balance made up of hogsheads (300 litres) and puncheons (500 litres) from our other chosen coopers. Overall, 40% of the barrels used were new French oak, mainly from forests in the centre of France, the balance being one use and older French oak.
Approaching sugar dryness, the barrels were inoculated with bacteria to encourage the malo-lactic fermentation (MLF), the conversion of hard malic acid to softer lactic acid. The bacteria converted about 75% of the malic acid, along the way adding creamy complexity and mouth feel. The remaining malic acid provides a fresh granny smith apple edge.
After a total of eight months in barrel, the components were emptied to tank and evaluated. The blend was then put together and chilled to -2 celcius. This helped clarification as the yeast slowly settled onto the tank floor. The final wine was then filtered to bottle in December 2016. Winery Notes
