Andrew Blake, Anna Kingscote — Marlborough, New Zealand
Tasting Notes
The nose shows great depth with aromas of sunripened stone fruit, toasted hazelnut, pancetta, cinnamon and honeycomb. The palate is rich, warm and full bodied with luscious fruit weight. There are flavours of peach and ripe grapefruit with a hint of butterscotch and subtle sweet oak on a vibrant focused finish.
Winemaking Notes
The Brothers 2010 Marlborough Chardonnay is made from grapes grown by two contract growers. One, an early ripening
vineyard near Renwick with Clone 6 Chardonnay grown on stony soils has well exposed bunches growing fruit with a lovely intensity, elegance and vibrancy. The later ripening Rapaura block is on heavier soils with Mendoza and Clone 15 Chardonnay growing fruit with great depth of flavour and power.
The fruit was hand picked and whole bunch pressed then transferred with full solids to barrel for fermentation with wild yeast. The wine completed malolactic fermentation and was matured on yeast lees in barrel for about 11 months then for a further five months in tanks prior to blending.
The blend comes from 85% new 300L to 500L French oak barrels and 15% third use barrels. Natural stabilisation occurred and no filtration was required ahead of bottling in late October 2010. Only 5,200 bottles made.
