2023 Chardonnay
Oyster Bay
Marlborough Chardonnay
Fragrant white peach, vibrant citrus with lingering lime zest and a creamy texture.
The philosophy of Oyster Bay is to produce fine, distinctively regional wines that are elegant and assertive with glorious fruit flavours. Oyster Bay Chardonnay truly captures the character of Marlborough with pure, incisive, ripe fruit flavours. A combination of barrel and tank fermentation, the stirring of yeast lees and a portion of malolactic fermentation achieves maximum softness, integration and texture.
Clonal influences in the vineyard are very important, providing smaller berries and enhanced flavour intensity. The result is the delicious Oyster Bay Marlborough Chardonnay with concentrated aromas and flavours of ripe citrus and stonefruit, balanced with subtle oak, and a creamy texture to finish. A sublime expression of fruit purity from Marlborough’s unique cool climate and soils.
New Zealand is blessed with two natural attributes that enable it to produce Super Premium wines unlike anywhere else: a maritime cool climate and alluvial soils.
New Zealand’s position in the Pacific Ocean provides a unique, temperate maritime climate. The benefit of a cool climate with long sunshine hours is an extended growing season with a long, slow period of ripening. This allows the well ripened grapes to develop strong, intense varietal characteristics whilst maintaining a balanced, crisp, natural acidity. Over thousands of years the continual process of mountain building and erosion by glaciers, floods and wind, has deposited alluvial soils on the riverbeds and terraces throughout much of New Zealand. These are the soils in which the vines of New Zealand’s renowned wine regions grow unique, quality grapes.
Marlborough Growing Region
The Marlborough region located at the top of New Zealand’s South Island provides a dry, sunny, but temperate climate, which allows the grapes a long, slow period of ripening spanning from January to April. The clear, cold nights keep acid levels high in the grapes, even when their sugars are rising. These day/night temperature variations are a crucial climatic influence that retains the grapes’ crisp, fresh, vibrant fruit characters.
Marlborough Soil Type
Prime central Wairau, Renwick and Brancott soils. Shallow, sandy loams over deep layers of free draining river gravels, providing low to moderate fertility and excellent drainage.
Clonal / Rootstock Selection
Chardonnay clones were selected to provide smaller berries and more flavour intensity – predominantly Dijon B95, UCD 15 and 548. Medium to low vigor rootstocks were matched for suitability to clone and soil.
Oak Selection
Predominantly tight grain French oak barrels are selected to provide integrated oak, which is less tannic, more aromatic, and provide layers of texture and complexity to the wine. These were seasoned for a minimum two-year period and medium toasted to ensure softer tannins and heightened aromatic potential.
Winemaking Techniques
The fruit was destemmed and lightly pressed, with the free run juice clarified to partial clarity, racked into stainless steel fermentation tanks, and inoculated with a pure yeast culture. 50% of the ferment was transferred to French oak barriques and allowed a slow temperature controlled fermentation at 14–16˚C (57–60˚F) for several weeks. The barrique-fermented wine was lees stirred regularly and matured for 9 months to achieve maximum softness and retention of varietal flavours. The tank fermented portion was held on yeast lees, stirred, racked, and prepared for final blending. A small portion of malolactic fermentation was undertaken. The resulting wine was then blended and filtered prior to bottling.
Sustainable Winegrowing
As a founding member of Sustainable Winegrowing New Zealand, we are conscious of our environment and we work hard to identify sensitive areas such as wetlands, streams and native vegetation to ensure that our vineyard practices do not affect the plants and animals that inhabit these areas. We minimise our water usage through our state-of-the-art soil moisture probe technology. We look after our soils by having interrow ground cover plantings, and by spreading our mulch underneath our vines, to provide a botanically diverse ground which encourages beneficial insects into our vineyards.
2023 Marlborough Vintage
Vintage 2023 delivered hallmark Marlborough aromatics, flavours and refreshing acidity. A true showcase of Marlborough’s famed cool climate viticulture.
| Vineyard Locations: | Wairau Valley and Awatere Valley |
| Vine age: | 14 – 27 years |
| Harvest Date: | 20 March – 14 April 2023 |
Maturity Analysis at Harvest (weighted average)
| Brix: | 21.1 |
| Titratable Acidity: | 10.6g/L |
| pH: | 3.23 |
Wine Analysis
| Alcohol: | 13.0% v/v |
| Residual Sugar: | Nil |
| Titratable Acidity: | 6g/L |
| pH: | 3.4 |