• French oak
• Grapefruit & pear
• Roasted cashews
• Lingering finish

Pale straw. The bouquet of this powerful, yet elegant Chardonnay displays fresh pear and lemon/lime characters with underlying hints of roasted cashews and frangipani adding complexity. The sophisticated palate is medium bodied with a wonderful purity of fruit, offering pear puree, zesty grapefruit flavours and a quartz-like, almost crystalline, mineral edge to the structure. Pristine fruit and tangy acid focus the wine to a crisp, lingering finish. A refined Chardonnay displaying classic Margaret River intensity – the 2021 Reserve is only just starting to unfurl, upon release, and will most certainly reward with careful cellaring.

We had a great summer leading up to vintage, although a rain event about a week or so before the start of harvest lead to some unusually humid conditions (for Margaret River at least). Careful fruit selection in some vineyards was required as a result of the humidity, despite experiencing good weather during the white harvest. The end of the whites saw a bit more rain, which was then followed by fine weather for the rest of March setting up the Cabernets nicely. In summary 2021 was a more challenging season than usual, however the extra work in the vineyard ultimately paid dividends with some wonderfully elegant wines being produced as a result. 100% of the fruit for this Reserve Chardonnay is from our oldest Chardonnay vineyard, the Lagan Estate. The low yielding vineyard produces bunches with characteristic ‘hen and chicken’ architecture typical of the Gingin clone. We encourage natural fermentation on fruit from this vineyard to further emphasize the personality of this wonderful site which is directly adjacent to the winery.

All of the fruit was hand-picked and whole bunch pressed followed by 100% barrel fermentation in select French oak (28% new oak). Fermentation was allowed to occur naturally, with the wild yeasts responsible for the fermentation introducing more complexity and personality into the wine. Barrels were lees stirred throughout a nine-month oak maturation period, without any malolactic fermentation. Only the best barrels were selected for the final blend which was put together in November 2021.