2021 Lowestoft La Meilleure Chardonnay

‘La Meilleure’ is a blend of fruit from the Coal River Valley, Tasman Peninsula, East Coast and a touch of Tamar Valley in the North. Other than being situated in Tasmania, these regions have nothing in common from a viticulture perspective. Coal Valley is black cracking clays over limestone and deep dolerite clays. The fruit is very powerful and expressive. Tasman Peninsula is where the penguins like to hang out… it’s cold, windy, salty, producing fruit with tension and laser like acidity. East Coast fruit can be very powerful if left to hang to “optimum ripeness”. We tend to pick earlier for the best results. Quite a lot of the lovely struck match/mineral sulphide in this wine comes from the East Coast portion. The sprinkling of Tamar Valley fruit in this wine is from one of our best sparkling blocks. It had a lovely pithy oyster shell character that we thought worked well in the blend.

Our very best Chardonnay fruit was hand-picked and chilled overnight before being whole bunch pressed into seasoned French oak (300L + 500L) and left to undergo wild fermentation with the inclusion of some solids. 50% of the wine was sulphured immediately post primary fermentation with the remaining 50% stirred without SO2 for 3 months. 9 months in oak prior to blending and bottling. Whilst MLF is never encouraged, a small portion of the blend completed MLF naturally. The fruit sourcing is 45% Coal River Valley, 25% Tasman Peninsula, 25% East Coast and 5% Tamar Valley. – Liam McElhinney, Lowestoft