Reserve Collection Chardonnay

The grapes were de-stemmed, crushed and pressed to stainless steel tanks for settling overnight or whole bunch pressed after a night in the cold room with one night’s settling and subsequent racking. Only the free run juice from the best blocks is used for the Reserve Collection Chardonnay. The juice from the settled batches was then racked and run off to barrel for fermentation with selected yeast.

This 100% Chardonnay is made from grapes grown on Tokara’s Stellenbosch farm on the slopes of the Simonsberg Mountain. The soils are Oakleaf from granitic origin with varying levels of sandstone pebbles in the profile. It is a deep clay rich soil, with gravelly elements. The aspects vary from South-Eastern to North Western slopes at altitudes between 300 and 360 m above sea level. The vines cropped between 6 and 7 tons per hectare. The grapes were hand-picked between the 10th and 20th of February at optimal flavour ripeness with sugars between 22 to 23.2 degrees brix and 6.5 to 8.1 g/l acid.

After fermentation the wine was topped and left on the lees with regular stirring for 9 months. 80% of the barrels were allowed to complete malolactic fermentation. The barrels were all tight grain French oak 228 litre of which 28% were new the rest were 2nd and 3rd fill barrels. The wine was bottled in December 2023.