2022 Nocturne ‘SR’ Chardonnay

Treeton. It’s a weird little area full of hillbillies, dairy cows and interestingly some great Chardonnay vineyards…. Cold at night, warm in the day, with deep silver/grey sands that I think produce great Chardonnay. This wine is a combination of two vineyards, that in this year were just right – awesome in fact. Grace & White which has been with me a while and a new vineyard called Wilsons which is very exciting to have hold of another tiny and unique fruit resource. 2022 is another very good vintage, it also does suck a bit as there was very little of it – crops were at an all-time low on many sites and these Chardonnay vineyards were no exception. ‘22 was also pretty darn warm at times which goes against the recent vintage grain in Margaret River, but it seemed no issue for these great sites that sailed through the heat with nary an issue.The season was early-ish in terms of picking dates. But, as always, these vineyards were some of the last, both being harvested on the 28^th of February. Weirdly, this was actually about the same time as the cooler and wetter 2021 vintage, and very similar to the very mild and much heavier cropping 2023 vintage… go figure.

The grapes were harvested by hand and whole bunch-pressed directly to new, one and two-year-old puncheons, with a smattering of barriques for good measure. We did no settling or fining. The juice was then very carefully neglected and allowed to undergo spontaneous fermentation, which kicked off on day three after pressing. After a four-week ferment the wine remained on gross lees un-sulphured until September of that year.  In November, it was emptied from barrel, settled, filtered and bottled.- Julian Langworthy, Nocturne