Verve chard

2009Ocean Eight Verve Chard

Winemaking

Chardonnay is the most consumed wine in the world. Australia has played a hand on the world stage for its rich oak styles of Chardonnay. The major criticism with Australian chardonnays is their innability to age, and mouth numbing oak flavour. Hundreds of Australian chardonnays can be opened after 2-3 years of ageing and the wines look buttery and oaky which is not what chardonnay is about. The consumer knows this and has understandably jumped ship to New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

As with pinot noir, the Mornington Peninsula also has a fantastic climate for growing Chardonnay grapes. With such a cool climate, growers on the Monrington Peninsula are able to take advantage of a very slow ripening season allowing us to pick the fruit slightly on the sour side. This sourness in the early stages of ripening fruit is due to large amounts of natural acidity in the grape. If fruit is picked with lots of acid it will last longer, oranges are a great example of this.

Wine is no different. The higher the amount of natural acidity in a wine the greater its potential to age.

One of the best examles of this is the region of Chablis in France. The growers in this region always struggle to ripen there fruit due to the very cold climate. Each year they pick their chardonnay with enormous amounts of acidity. The wines have characters of lemon, lime and minerals and are fantastic to drink with foods like Oysters, Scallops Callamari etc.

The inspiration for the Ocean Eight Verve Chardonnay comes from this region of Chablis. The chardonnay grapes for this wine are the earliest picked on the Mornington Peninsula with the exception of fruit for Sparkling. The wine is stored for 10-12 months on full solids in ‘old’ oak barrels. The aim is to maintain excellent natural acidity that will enable the wine to age well. There is no new oak used in this wine. As with our pinot noir we want to highlight the fruit spectrum of racy lemon/lime acidity without coating the wine with unbalancing oak flavours. This is the reason we call our Chardonnay Verve (lively). It is a descriptor for the racy acidity that trademarks this wine year in year out.

Tasting Notes

The 2008 Verve Chardonnay is a very subtle wine! There are macadamia-nut aromas with some clove spices from barrel fermentation. The fruit is very much in the lime and grapefruit spectrum. The finish is the highlight with a racy acid and mineral mouth-feel up the centre of the pallet. This wine will match well with Oysters, Scallops and other subtle seafood dishes.

Recommended Retail Price $35.00