2005 Chardonnay

VINTAGE
The 2005 growing season was beautiful; free of extremes of temperature and with warm days and cool nights. Overall it was a cooler year than average which tends to give us finer, more delicate and more subtle flavours. We harvested the Chardonnay on 23rd March with crop levels at 3 kg per vine. The flavour, sugar and acid balance was excellent. Sugar at harvest was 12.3°Be.

TASTING NOTES

Aroma: Fresh, nutty, creamy fruit with subtle melon overtones. Elusive and complex aromas.
Palate: Crisp, tight, fine and understated. Concentrated but not big. A wine of freshness, delicacy and subtle power.

TECHNICAL DETAILS

Region: Lenswood, Adelaide Hills
Variety: 100% Chardonnay
Oak Maturation: 12 months in French oak barriques. All from forests in the centre of France and Vosges. Half new oak and half second use.
pH: 3.31 | Alcohol: 13.1% | TA: 7.1 g/L
Cellaring: Freshness, concentration, delicacy and balance with crisp acidity are the keys for ageable wines. This wine has all of these elements and I am confident that it will age well. I envisage positive development for at least 15 years under Stelvin.
Food Suggestion: Flavourful but delicate foods are ideal partners for this wine. Happily accompanies a wide range of foods, in particular, seafood such as prawns, barramundi or lobster.
Serving Suggestion: Best drunk cool between 5 and 12°C
Closure: A note on Stelvin. We now use Stelvin on all our white wines. Stelvin sealed wines in my experience have many positive characteristics. They are fresher than cork sealed wines are free of taints age more slowly and gracefully than cork can be safely stored at more variable and warmer temperatures than wine under cork. Since ageablity is a fundamental attribute of our wines it is logical that we should seal our white wine with the closure which achieves this best. The question of ageing of red wines under Stelvin is still open. Steady but limited ingress of air to the wine to enhance development of reds is facilitated by cork under good cellaring conditions and is, to me, a reason to continue with cork for reds.

REVIEWS FOR THE  2005 CHARDONNAY

TOP 20 Wines One of the unsung heroes of the Australian wine industry, Geoff Weaver has quietly gone about the business of making subtle and well crafted wines at his Lenswood vineyard in the Adelaide Hills, established in 1982. Weaver has devoted himself to the venture full time since leaving Hardys, where he was chief winemaker, in 1992.
This very bright wine exudes elegance with ist pristine melon and nectarine fruit aromas and beautifully handled vanillin oak (50 percent new), which sits quiely in the background. The palate is equally linear and refined and there is a lovely thread of acidity that runs throughout the wine, suggesting that this should age superbly over the next five to 10 years.
Philip Rich. The Australian Financial Review Magazine, 24 November 2006

Five stars. A superb example, a near perfect wine of great character, worthy of the big occaision. In keeping with Geoff Weaver’s skill as a winemaker, complex winery inputs move this Adelaide Hills chardonnay well out of a simple fruit-plus-oak equation. Instead you get elaborate aromas of wholemeal bread, nuts, peaches and citrus fruits. In the mouth it’s seamless and lingering in rich flavour, yet gently savoury and dry. Delicious.
Ageing? Drink over two years plus. Food ideas: Salmon; snapper.
Ralph Kyte-Powell, The Age, Tues 23rd January 2007