Seascape Reserve Chardonnay

The grapes were handpicked in the early morning on 2nd March 2020 into 18kg lug boxes at a Balling of 22.1°. Once picked the grapes were placed in cold storage for overnight cooling to a temperature of 8°C. The following day the grape bunches were hand sorted before being put straight into the press for whole bunch pressing up to 1 Bar. Thereafter the juice is moved to tank where it remained untouched for one to two days and allowed to settle. The juice was then racked off its heavy lees and allowed to heat up naturally before being inoculated with Lallemand ICV D21 yeast at 30g/hl and then moved to barrel for fermentation to take place for seven days. The lees was no stirring of the lees during the maturation period. The wine was then racked off its lees, given a light sulphuring and allowed four months maturation before being given a light filtration and bottled.

The grapes come from CY5 clone vines on north facing slopes. The vines experience, on average, 750mm of rain each year with southeasterly winds in the spring and summer and north-westerly winds in the autumn and winter. The soil is composed of a Longlands/Avalon soil and a fine Table Mountain sandstone of which 15% is clay. Along with natural rainfall, the vines are supplemented with under vine micro jet irrigation in every second row.