Scarborough Yellow Label Chardonnay 2016 (Hunter Valley)

The fruit for the Scarborough Yellow Label Chardonnay 2016 wine is sourced from our Gillards Road property and other vineyards from the Hunter Valley with the same soil type; deep hillside red/brown terra rossa of limestone parentage. The fruit is machine picked in the early hours of the morning when it has reached a good balance of sugar, flavour and acid. Once in the winery the fruit is handled oxidatively, crushed, pressed and pumped to stainless steel tanks. Once settled the clear juice is racked and then inoculated to start fermentation. When fermentation is about ⅓rd through we transfer the fermenting juice to French oak Barrels of varying age. Fermentation is completed in barrel and then malolactic fermentation is allowed to occur naturally (usually around 10-30%). The lees are stirred monthly. The wine is pumped out of barrel to stainless steel tanks and is then bottled 12 months prior to release.

Vintage 2016 started well with below average rainfall during spring 2015, which helped with early season growth and flowering at the beginning of November. Once flowering was finished the heavens opened which saw November, December and January 2016 receive twice their average monthly rainfall. With the mean monthly temperature sitting pretty much on average this provided some challenging conditions but with rain stopping on the 14th January and our driest February on record, the 2016 vintage was salvaged. White varieties were the first to be picked, whilst the reds were picked at the traditional timing of late January leading into February. All in all a solid vintage with traditional Hunter conditions. Winery Notes