Rochford Wines

Rochford Macedon Ranges Chardonnay

Vintage
2006

Varieties
100% Chardonnay

Tasting Notes
Light straw with a green edge. The nose shows classic cool climate chardonnay perfume of citrus and melon overlayed with nutty oak. The palate is tightly structured leading to a long creamy finish. Barrel fermentation and maturation complements the fruit structure and adds depth and complexity to this wine. As there is no malo lactic fermentation there is plenty of acidity to give length and freshness to the finish.

Cellaring
3 to 5 years

Winemaking
The great thing about making wine from fruit grown in a cool region is that the fruit arrives at the winery at a nice low temperature. This naturally low fruit temperature allows us to whole bunch press our chardonnay. This results in very high quality juice with well-defined fruit flavours, low phenolic extraction and very low solids levels. After overnight settling the juice was racked into French oak barriques and a yeast culture was added. Following primary fermentation sulphur dioxide was added to the wine to prevent malo lactic fermentation. We feel that the lack of malo lactic allows the wine to truly express its fruit characters and also gives a wine with better aging potential. This was followed by 8 months maturation on yeast lees.
The wine was racked from barrel in December and bottled in early February 2007.

Viticultural Notes
The early part of the 2005/2006 growing season was warm to hot but this changed quickly in mid March to being very cool and showery. This weather persisted for the balance of the ripening period. The resulted was extended ripening with good flavour development but slightly lower acidy than normal. The fruit was hand picked between the 24th and 26th April at 12.0 to 13.2 Be.

Technical Data
Alcohol 14.0%
pH 3.25
Titratable acidity 7.1 grams per litre
Residual sugar 0.5 grams per litre

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