Mt Difficulty Roaring Meg Central Otago Chardonnay 2020

Mt Difficulty Roaring Meg Central Otago Chardonnay 2020French oak Baked fig & apple Brioche & nougat Smooth & succulent "Beautifully composed and elegantly expressed with ripe peach, baked fig, assorted nut and nougat characters, leading to a succulent palate offering smooth texture and bright acidity. Stylish with ripe fruit flavours and discreet oak nuances. At its best: now to 2025" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2022 Honeysuckle, baked apple and brioche aromas overlay some flinty minerality on the nose. A

• French oak
• Baked fig & apple
• Brioche & nougat
• Smooth & succulent

"Beautifully composed and elegantly expressed with ripe peach, baked fig, assorted nut and nougat characters, leading to a succulent palate offering smooth texture and bright acidity. Stylish with ripe fruit flavours and discreet oak nuances. At its best: now to 2025" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Mar 2022

Honeysuckle, baked apple and brioche aromas overlay some flinty minerality on the nose. A soft texture on the palate with a full mouthfeel of rich pear, stone fruit and custard notes. The long palate shows good freshness from the cool vintage. Roaring Meg Central Otago Chardonnay is optimal drinking from release to five years of age.

The grapes for this wine come from Cromwell basin vineyards managed by our viticultural team.

2020 sets a new benchmark for tricky seasons. A wet, cold and windy spring introduced our growing season, these conditions continued through our key flowering and fruit set periods in October and December - impacting our potential yields for the season. Disturbed weather patterns continued right through January, and whilst the weather settled in February it was not its usual scorching self. We experienced cool periods through both veraison and ripening; delaying and then slowing down our harvest. Even with all that fruit condition was superb with no disease pressure, and the small berries were bursting with flavour.

The fruit was hand-picked at peak ripeness in early April, from Bannockburn and Pisa. The grapes were then handled in an oxidative fashion, destemmed and pressed to concrete egg. It was then fermented in a mix of old neutral barrels and our colourful concrete eggs. The egg shape of the fermenters allows the wine to circulate naturally adding depth and texture to the wine without oak flavours. We fermented 70% of the juice in concrete eggs, with the balance in old barriques, all with full solids using indigenous yeasts. Whilst maturing no lees stirring was utilised. The wine went through a full malolactic fermentation in spring, after which the barriques were stirred for a period. The wine was racked and filtered before being bottled, unfined, in March.