2021 Optume Chardonnay

Hand-picked over the space of 27 days from six clones drawn from ten blocks allowing for ideal ripening across five specifically selected vineyards. All fruit was hand-sorted then tipped directly to press as whole bunches. Cloudy juice was settled overnight prior to racking to a mix of concrete tulip tanks and select oak barrels. Natural fermentation was allowed to initiate prior to inoculation with a specific varietally-enhancing yeast strain. Finished wines aged on lees with minimal stirring for 10 months prior to selection and blending post-vintage 2022 for further ageing on lees for six months in concrete tulip.

The exceptional 2021 vintage provided ideal conditions for us to follow-up our inaugural 2020 release in presenting an overall expression of Chardonnay provided from multiple sub-regions of the Yarra Valley. Grapes were sourced from seven select vineyard sites dispersed across the central valley floor rising up to the higher, cooler later-ripening upper Yarra to the south. The intention of this breadth of scope is to create an exceptional and complete wine of regional typicity, combining the individual site-specific strengths and expressions to deliver the optimum expression of our regions’ enviable reputation with this variety. 

Combining volume, intensity and weight with focus, finesse and restraint, this enticing slow-building fuller-bodied Chardonnay is the meeting of an assemblage of individual strengths and personalities of multiple vineyard sites. It leads with an aromatic intensity of mandarin, pine-lime, Aleppo pepper, fennel pollen, makrut leaf, chamomile, bread dough, spun sugar, crème anglaise and gun smoke with an undercurrent of grapefruit pith, shale and petrichor. The complex and textural palate delivers focus and precision with richness. Befitting a regionally representative wine of this ilk, the power of presence, flavour, drive and unfurling intensity resound with length and persistence. As a young wine, decanting is recommended.