Nautilus Chardonnay 2020

The story of Nautilus Chardonnay begins in 1989 when the first wine was made from the Nautilus Renwick vineyard. Now, 31 years after that inaugural 1989 Nautilus Chardonnay release, our learnings have brought us to the point where we are fully confident in our winemaking and viticulture programme and house style.

Nautilus Chardonnay

Fruit from our own Renwick vineyard has been blended with a small amount of Dijon clone 95 grown by Jim and Debbie Greer. These sites are stony and free draining, producing low yields, fantastic depth of flavour and mineral structure. Over forty per cent of the 2020 blend is now from new Burgundian clonal plantings in our Renwick vineyard which nicely complements our mature clone 15 on the same site.

The 2019 season started as normal but temperatures soon drifted above the average and continued there throughout spring and summer, with the season finishing as one of the warmest on record. Initial bunch counts were down but the warm spring provided good flowering conditions and larger than normal bunches were predicted. These predictions prompted an early-round of shoot thinning on most blocks. Some February rains ensured the bunches continued to grow in size and further thinning was required to ensure we hit our quality targets.

Handpicked grapes were chilled overnight before gentle pressing direct to barrel without settling. The wine was entirely barreled fermented in French oak barriques (20% new) using indigenous yeast. A short period of lees stirring post ferment adds a textural element to the palate.

11 months in French oak