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Vineyard
Established in 1997 at Scotsburn, on a windswept ridge 1.5 km from the base of Mt Buninyong, this site is planted in old goldfield soils. These soils, remnants of the Ordovician period, are made up of clay and sandy quartz breccia along with angular quartz pieces, sandstone, mudstone and siltstone. At 500m elevation, warm days are followed by (acid retaining) cold nights. Vine rows run north south and are trained to a VSP canopy.
Growing Season, Winemaking
The 2018/2019 growing season at Scotsburn began with very cool, wet conditions at our Ballarat Chardonnay site. Thankfully, by flowering warm dry conditions arrived and a good crop was set. Shoot thinning took place ensuring appropriate yields. Whilst January and February saw very warm days, trademark Ballarat cool nights moderated the speed of ripening. Hand-picked on March 28th March the vineyard yielded 2.2t per acre.
Winemaking
Chilled overnight then whole bunch pressed to tank, the juice was settled for 24 hours. It was then roughly racked to French barriques, 33% new Troncais, 16% with toasted heads. Indigenous ferment started after 2 days, at around 6 ˚Be to ensure dryness the ferment was over-seeded with a known yeast. Movement in and out of a coolroom kept the maximum ferment temperature to <20˚C. When dry, barrels were tasted fortnightly until any given barrel “looked right” at which point it was sulphured. The key point being that whilst background regard was given to MLF, SO2 addition was all about when it tasted right. Otherwise the wine was topped fortnightly and left to mature on yeast lees for 10 months prior to being barrel select blended, filtered and bottled.
Independent Review
"The perfect introduction to Ballarat chardonnay for those new to its significant charms. So fine but so full of depth, too, deceptively so. Grapefruit, lime, wax flowers, almond nut, grilled white peach. Quietly goes about its work on the palate establishing authority with filigree-fine acid structure and balance throughout."
95 Points Jeni Port – James Halliday Wine Companion
(Published on 13 August 2021)
