Oyster Bay Chardonnay

Description

The fruit is destemmed and lightly pressed, with the free run and pressed juice cold settled to partial clarity, racked into stainless steel fermentation tanks and inoculated with a pure yeast culture. A portion of the ferment is transferred to French oak barriques and allowed a slow temperature controlled fermentation for several weeks. The barrique fermented wine is lees stirred on a weekly basis and matured for a period of months to achieve maximum softness and retention of varietal flavours. The tank fermented portion is held on yeast lees stirred, racked and prepared for final blending. No malolactic fermentation is undertaken, and the resulting wine is then blended and filtered prior to bottling.