L.A.S. Vino 'Wildberry Springs' Chardonnay 2019

A real step change in the winemaking technique in this wine for the 2019 albeit the same terrior. 30 year old vines, Gin Gin Chardonnay clone from Wildberry springs vineyard in Willyabrup. Hand picked, pressed to tank, settled overnight, racked off gross lees then the initial 2 to 3 grams of sugar of the fermentation started off in tank.
Now the fun stuff. 70% of this year’s juice went exclusively in to Amphora. For those of you who want to delve deeper the Amphora’s are from an Italian producer called Clayver, smaller ‘pot eggs’ is perhaps the best description. 2 x 250ltr and 2 x 400ltr Amphora’s were used. They are not lined with beewax, so the juice is directly on clay/stone. Wild fermented, lees stirred, full malolactic. The remaining 30% of the blend was wild fermented in seasoned French barrique and one new Austrian barriques(Stockinger), full malolactic. The wine was left to mature for 11 months.

All prior vintage releases of the LAS Vino Chardonnay have been 100% barrel fermented, so the use 70% of Amphora in 2019 is both exciting and as Nic puts it an expression of purity for this year’s release - Neil Francaboutwine