Hoddles Creek Estate 'Syberia' Chardonnay 2018

"Syberia is quite a unique site. First planted in 2006, a ten acre block entirely to Chardonnay. It has 5 different clones in the block which were picked out from source blocks on our existing property. It is different to all the other blocks as the rows for this block run East-West rather than North-South. So instead of having morning and afternoon sun hitting the bunch zone, the sun is always overhead of the canopy. This leads to less direct sunlight on the bunches and enables us to pick the fruit at lower sugar levels with the same amount of ripeness. 

I won't bore you with all the winemaking details as it is pretty straightforward. The fruit is picked early in the morning, whole bunch pressed to tank. It's left to settle overnight in tank and decanted into barrel. Only the vineyard dust is left at the bottom of the tank as we want to take all the solids. It's left in barrel until November, when it is assembled and bottled. It spends almost two years in bottle before it is released."  Franco D'Anna, Winemaker