ABC - Anything but Chardonnay or LLC - Long Live Chardonnay
Posted: 16/01/2010 1:18:49 p.m.
This other batch instead has slowly ticked away and by June decided to take a break, at 15 grams of sugar. In the past this would have panicked me, and I would have probably have tried a lot of winemaking techniques to get it going again, all of which could have potentially robbed the quality of the wine. But instead, I decided to just leave it. It is a natural ferment anyway. The yeast have come in from the air, and have not been cultured up to the turbo status of the commercial yeast. I have also had experience that once the Spring equinox has passed, wines begin to rouse, malolactic ferments begin and yeast perk up.
To my delight, when I returned from Christmas, that is exactly what has happened. The wine is now at 5 grams per litre .It is still too high for a chardonnay, so I will wait until the end of this month and see what it ends up at and I still have the other batch of completed chardonnay so I think I will be blending this wine in February fingers crossed.
Chardonnay is a fabulous variety and I thoroughly enjoy making this wine. The “ABC” movement is disappointing but sort of understandable. As winemakers I think we need to take the lions share of the blame. We have been making chardonnays with too much oak, too much sweetness and dare I say it but too much fruit. The wine has become a monument to the winemaker’s Ego (and I am writing from past experience). I am on an almost evangelistic journey to convert and sway back past followers and I am trying to achieve that with a more natural approach. Natural yeast, reduced oak, letting the wine take its own course (although taking 10 months to ferment is taking this independence a little too far).
New Zealand fruit as an abundance of flavour, be it grapes, apricots, cherries, and we have wonderful natural acidity. This makes our wines unique, but as far as Chardonnay goes, in my opinion, it is too much. I don’t want to drink a wine that has ‘tropical fruit and peaches laced with premium oak” (an old winemaking tasting note). It is too much like having a lower acid version of a ripe Sauvignon Blanc with chewy oak to deal with. I want my chardonnay to have secondary fruit flavours and be all about the tactility of the wine. In fact, the tactile nature of the wine is paramount in my view. Oak should be the Maitre de, imperative to the execution , but not the main feature. So my chardonnay is my poster child. I know this is not fashionable. I knew that having a chardonnay in my portfolio would be harder to sell but I am on a mission and it appears to be paying off.
Long Live Chardonnay LLC!