Escarpment Chardonnay 2014

World Wine – Bright, even straw-yellow colour with slight lemon-green hues, lighter on the rim. The bouquet is firm and tightly concentrated with robust aromas of white stonefruits melded with layers of gunflint and minerally lees, along with nutty oak and aldehyde elements. The aromatics and complexity grow in breadth and depth with aeration. Medium-full bodied, the palate is rich and fulsome with robustly mouthfilling and deep flavours of white stonefruits entwined with nutty oak, flinty lees and reductive elements, along with subtle aldehyde and oxidative detail. The fruit is enlivened by fresh, lacy acidity and the wine flows with underlying alcohol power along a fine-textured line, leading to a thirst-quenching vibrant and sustained finish with nutty nuances. This is a fulsome and robust Chardonnay with white stonefruit, nutty oak and flinty, reductive and complexing nuances with a lively and fine-textured palate in the style of traditional white burgundy. Match with poultry, pork and veal dishes over the next 4+ years. Clone 95 fruit from the estate Te Muna Road vineyard, indigenous yeast barrel-fermented to 13.5% alc., the wine aged 11 months on lees with batonnage in 20% new French oak with 50% MLF, then transferred to tank for a further 5 months lees aging.