Oyster Bay Chardonnay 2020

Fragrant white peach and juicy melon, with lingering lime zest and a creamy texture.

A combination of barrel and tank fermentation and the stirring of yeast lees achieves maximum soft ness, integration and texture. To retain all the natural assertiveness and flavour, no malolactic fermentation takes place.

Oyster Bay Marlborough Chardonnay with concentrated aromas and flavours of ripe citrus and stonefruit, balanced with subtle oak, and a creamy texture to finish.

The philosophy of Oyster Bay is to produce fine, distinctly regional Super Premium wines that are elegant and assertive, with glorious fruit flavours. Oyster Bay produces wines from the renowned regions of Marlborough and Hawke's Bay.

The Hawke’s Bay region, located on the East Coast of the North Island, is one of New Zealand’s warmest grape-growing climates. As a micro-climate the Gimblett Gravels sub region experiences warmer air temperatures throughout the summer growing season than other viticultural localities of the Hawke’s Bay. The accumulated heat and day/night temperature differences, together with the free draining, gravel soils, deliver the dense fruit flavor and more structured tannins of our Merlot wines. Soil Type Omahu stony gravels and Red Metal soils. Fertile alluvial deposits over gravelly subsoils with low water holding capacity

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.

Winemaking Techniques The fruit was destemmed, crushed and transferred into stainless steel fermentation tanks. The must was inoculated with pure yeast cultures to enhance varietal aromatics and fruit characters. Tailored cap management techniques were performed during fermentation to obtain delicate fruit tannins and maximize flavor and color extraction. Following gentle pressing, the wine underwent malolactic fermentation in tank and in French oak barriques. A large portion of the blend was then aged in French oak barriques for 11 months to impart softness and complexity to the wine.

Oak Selection The Bordeaux style, tight-grained barriques were air-seasoned for a minimum of two years, imparting subtle, toasty, smoky characters, spicy complexity, and structural tannin for enhanced mouth-feel and concentration.

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