Pegasus Bay Estate Waipara Valley Chardonnay 2020

Pegasus Bay Estate Waipara Valley Chardonnay 2020"Strapping yet delicate, richly flavoured yet subtle, this sophisticated North Canterbury wine is one of the country's best Chardonnays grown south of Marlborough. Muscular and taut, it typically offers a seamless array of fresh, crisp, citrusy, biscuity, complex flavours and great concentration and length. Estate grown at Waipara, it is based on ungrafted, Mendoza clone vines (over 30 years old), hand picked and given lengthy oak aging Still very

"Strapping yet delicate, richly flavoured yet subtle, this sophisticated North Canterbury wine is one of the country's best Chardonnays grown south of Marlborough. Muscular and taut, it typically offers a seamless array of fresh, crisp, citrusy, biscuity, complex flavours and great concentration and length. Estate-grown at Waipara, it is based on ungrafted, Mendoza-clone vines (over 30 years old), hand-picked and given lengthy oak aging … Still very youthful, the vigorous 2020 vintage is bright, light yellow/green, with a fragrant, slightly smoky bouquet. Tightly structured, it has intense, peachy, citrusy, mealy flavours, gently seasoned with biscuity oak, vibrant acidity and a sustained finish" Michael Cooper, Sep 2023

"Impressively complex and engaging, the bouquet shows ripe stone fruit, gun smoke, lemon peel, cedar and oatmeal aromas, leading to a powerfully expressed palate offering awesome weight and persistency. The wine is wonderfully textured and mouthfilling with a lengthy creamy finish" Sam Kim, Wine Orbit, Jun 2023

"Classic Peg-Bay bouquet of power and richness, no mistaking the intensity of style as well as nutty oak and ripeness of stone fruits, cashew and Brazil-nut some burnt butter and baking spices, roasted stone fruits, pineapple and a whisper of butterscotch. Full-bodied, rich in flavours with a creamy satin texture. A mix of sweet oak and medium+ alcohol, plenty of acidity leading to a complete, lengthy finish" Cameron Douglas, Master Sommelier, Jul 2023

"The 2020 Chardonnay is a powerful, forthright style. This young, reductive, barrel-fermented style provides evident flint, smoky bacon and hazelnut aromas atop the savoury fruit. It offers muscle and firmness within its medium-bodied core. It’s a serious and unapologetic style erring on the right side of funky. It deserves several years in bottle to gel" Rebecca Gibb, Master of Wine, Vinous, Jan 2023

On release the colour is bright lemon. A rich tapestry of aromas rises to satiate the nose, rock melon, nectarine, and mandarin spray at the fore, interwoven with hints of buttered popcorn, flinty gun smoke, vanilla pod, and a whisper of vegemite. The palate is full bodied yet precise, with a creamy textured mouthfeel balanced by a shaft of invigorating acidity that gives focus and drive. Elegant with underlying power and structure, building towards a long, beguiling close.

The vineyard is located within the Waipara Valley of North Canterbury, on free draining, north facing terraces. It benefits from being in the lee of the Teviotdale Range, giving maximum protection from the Pacific’s easterly breezes and thus creating a unique mesoclimate. The vines are over 30 years old, with a large proportion planted on their own roots. They are located on the “Glasnevin Gravels” where greywacke stones, silt and loam have been washed down from the mountains over the millennia. The soil is of low fertility, resulting in naturally reduced vine vigour. This produces low yields of optimally ripened, high quality, flavourful grapes, which fully express the qualities of this unique terroir. The vineyard has warm days, but the nights are amongst the coolest in the Waipara Valley, drawing out the ripening period of the grapes, while still retaining good natural acidity.

Settled weather over flowering provided a healthy fruit set, which was then thinned back to desired levels. The ensuing summer was dry with very little rain, resulting in perfectly ripened small berries full of intense flavour and concentration. Thankfully, our harvest was able to proceed during the Covid-19 lockdown, and an unbroken autumn full of warm days meant the fruit was picked at its optimum ripeness.

We use traditional Burgundian winemaking methods. The fruit was hand-picked in stages during late March and early April, and then gently trodden underfoot to increase complexity and phenolic structure. The free-run, non-clarified juice was then put into large French oak barrels (puncheons), 70% of which were old to limit pickup of oak flavour. In these it underwent primary fermentation by the grapes indigenous yeasts. The wine was then matured in the puncheons on its natural deposits of yeast lees (sur lie). In the summer after harvest, it started to go through spontaneous secondary (malolactic) fermentation. It was regularly tasted during this time and the fermentation was stopped when the ideal balance was obtained. It had approximately 12 months maturation prior to bottling.