Nocturne SV Chardonnay 2023

2023 - it’s a thing and so is this wine. The best Nocturne SV Chardonnay to date …. Yes correct; I feel unequivocal on this. For a wine to have massive complexity and intensity but do it in a way that’s so harmonious, it’s hard to sort of even realise it’s an assault to the senses - that’s when you know you have something special on your hands.

The fruit is of course from a single site, the Forrest Vineyard in the Wilyabrup sub-region of Margaret River. Moreover, this wine is from a tiny ridge section from within the middle of this vineyard, selectively picked for this wine. Planted to the classic, WA Gin Gin clone, it’s a wine of unbelievable natural acid presence and structural drive.

The vineyard is otherwise largely flat and quite close to the coast, some 3 kms only and is planted on deep silver-grey sands. The picking date is generally relatively early in the Chardonnay season given the vineyard’s low yielding nature. The grapes were handpicked on 20th of February, two days earlier than 2022. Whole bunch-pressed directly to new, one and two-year-old puncheons, with no settling or fining processes. This juice was then carefully monitored and spontaneous fermentation kicked off on day five after pressing. After a four-week ferment, the wine remained on gross lees, un-sulphured until October of that year. In December the wine was emptied from barrel, settled, filtered and bottled.

This is an exciting site that holds amazing acid structure and lovely al dente tannin. It needs some time to truly unfurl, unfold, and show its true colours, but one sniff will show, that it has the character that Nocturne’s SV Chardys are famous for: Flint, funk, just ripe stone fruit, citrus and hope…. In hope that change is always to grow and to hopefully improve. Get around this wine, bright with flint, funk and grilled lime, it’s a bright new future out there. – Julian Langworthy