Astrolabe Marlborough Chardonnay 2020

Aroma - Some ripe melon and dried stone fruits with vanilla and butter notes and a subtle mealiness.

Palate - A wine of very elegant texture with stone fruit, vanilla creaminess, toasty oak, pleasing weight and a long, dry and mineral finish.

In his Province range, Simon emphasises the varietal intensity created by Marlborough’s leafy vineyards, ripe fruit and cool-climate winegrowing conditions. Simon takes the classic varietal styles of the region and, through delicate fruit handling and astute blending, produces benchmark wines.

"Chardonnay is my first love as a winemaker, and I’ve always felt a bond with it. In New Zealand, chardonnay is grown right across the length of the country. It’s the variety that I made my reputation on 30 years ago in Gisborne, before I came down to Marlborough and started working with sauvignon blanc. I think it’s one of the truly great wine styles of the world. Marlborough, as a cool climate wine region, has its strength in making beautiful mineral styles of chardonnay.

Chardonnay is all about texture, in my view, but in my Marlborough Chardonnay, I combine texture with a tight structure. This wine is blended from four different clones from grapes grown at my home vineyard in the lower Wairau Valley, Wrekin Vineyard on the clay hillsides of the Southern Valleys and Windmill Block at Dumgree in the Awatere Valley.

The fruit is all hand-picked and whole cluster pressed to reduce phenolic structure and allow attractive grape solids fermentation characters to come through. I use only the free-run juice, also known as cuvée. That cuvée juice is taken down a very traditional Burgundian path: high-solids barrel fermentation with wild yeast, lees aging in French oak and bâtonnage throughout the maturation period.

The wine develops structure and body as it ages in 500 litre oak puncheons, where it undergoes malolactic fermentation, gathers lees complexity from aging on the lees and takes in flavours from the wood and its toast levels. I enjoy complementing the natural stonefruit and citrus flavours of our chardonnay grapes by building aromatic complexity and texture during winemaking to craft an elegant, dry and mouth-filling wine.

My main drive is to make a beautiful food wine that will age with grace, has length and subtle power and will satisfy those who mainly come to the category of chardonnay with a background in drinking white Burgundies. Chardonnay is a winemaker’s favourite — the best white wine for barrel aging and exploring non-fruit complexity. It allows a lot of room for expression of my personal style."

Simon Waghorn, Winemaker

Climate: The 2018-2019 growing season was warm and dry, with a shorter period between budburst and harvest than typical. Drought conditions prevailed preharvest, and some timely rain towards the end helped vine health and grape flavour development. Berry size was smaller and bunch weight less than the previous two seasons, and crop loads were well balanced to soils and vine vigour. Soils: Largely grown on a free-draining silty loam, with some on the tight clays of a steeply sloping hillside.

Harvest Date: Between 19th March and 2nd April, 2019.

Vine Management: Standard trellis with pruning to two canes and vertical shoot positioning. Vines are trimmed closely, well tucked, with minimal leaf plucking. Extensive fruit thinning enhances concentration of flavour.

WINEMAKING The fruit was hand-picked and wholebunch pressed. Only the free-run juice was used, and this was fermented in French oak puncheons and barriques, using both select and wild yeast.

Frequent bâtonnage, full malolactic fermentation and nine months’ barrel maturation have added to the texture and complexity. This wine is unfined. Bottled 10th February, 2021.