L.A.S. Vino ‘Wildberry Springs’ Chardonnay 2023

25 year old vines, Gin Gin Chardonnay clone from Wildberry springs vineyard in Willyabrup. As Nic highlights he begged for several years to get the opportunity to pick fruit from this vineyard. Hand-picked, pressed straight to barrel. 100% of this year’s juice went exclusively into barrel, of which the majority was French oak (20% new) barrique + one new Austrian barrique (Stockinger. Wild ferment, full malolactic, lees stirring every two weeks. 10 months in oak, bottled with no fining and a light filtration.

For those if you who have followed this wine for the past few vintages Nic has been using Amphora in the past 2 years, but for 2020 he decided to use only barrel due to what was a very long primary ferment, over 9 months to complete. I always enjoy the yearly tastings with Nic as he’s always open to share both the successes and challenges of winemaking and in this vintage the wild ferment just wasn’t ‘loving’ the Amphora and so he decided to switch to use just barrels. Selfishly I love the return to this expression of the site from Nic.

Purity is the word that I think every time I try this wine. Purity, tension and elegance. Pure flavours of Willyabrup chardonnay, peach lemon, lime, green apple, a touch of cream and a hint of flint. The wine will age gracefully for 10 years if cellared correctly.