Rochford Wines

Rochford Macedon Ranges Chardonnay

Vintage
2001

Varieties
100% Chardonnay

Tasting Notes
Brilliant light straw with a green edge. The nose shows well defined cool climate chardonnay perfume combined with citrus and honey melon overlayed with cashew. The palate is rich and velvety. Barrel fermentation and maturation complements the fruit structure and adds depth and complexity to this wine. æ The malo lactic fermentation has created subtitle complexities without being dominating. However there is still plenty of natural acidity to give length and freshness to the finish.

Winemaking
The great thing about making wine in a cool region is that the fruit comes into the winery at a nice low temperature. This year we had fruit temperatures of about 12 degrees centigrade. 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 pure yeast culture was added. Following primary fermentation the wine underwent 100% malo lactic fermentation and this was followed by 9 months maturation on yeast lees. The wine was racked from barrel in January and bottled in early March 2002.

Viticultural Notes
The 2000/2001 growing season was another warm year, but unlike the previous vintage it was very dry. This resulted in a very early vintage with all our Chardonnay being harvested before mid April. Fruit quality was excellent with sugars in the low thirteens promising to give wines of around 13.5 percent alcohol. As is normal at Rochford all picking was done by hand.

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