Tasting Notes:

Scents of smoky, grilled sweet corn, white peach and pineapple.

Medium to full-bodied with plenty of power and assertive flavour while remaining elegant and lively on the long finish.

About the Wine & Winemaking:

The aim for this Chardonnay is to retain a fresh structure rather than producing a wine that was too broard.

In order to achieve this, the team at Mahi minimise the malolactic fermentation so that it is really the vineyard, fruit, wild-ferment and barrel characters that make up the complex nose and palate.

Mahi Twin Valleys Chardonnay wine comes from a small parcel in the Twin Valleys Vineyard, located in the Fareham Lane area of Marlborough.

The vineyard is at the western end of the Wairau Valley, on the junction with the Waihopai Valley.

The influence of the constant river flow has resulted in the silt being washed away and the soils remaining both rocky and devigourated.

Being some distance from the sea the climate is also cooler. The grapes therefore typically ripen more slowly and retain an interesting mineral character.

The vines are all from Mahi's favoured Clone 95 which they found suits the area as the fruit comes in with good acid balance. The vines were cropped low to ensure ripeness and palate richness.

The vines were cropped low to ensure ripeness and palate richness.

In the winery the grapes were whole-cluster pressed and the high-solids juice taken straight to French barriques for fermentation with indigenous yeast.

After 15 months in oak the Mahi team felt the balance was correct and took the wine from barrel.

It was then aged further in tank on yeast lees prior to being racked and gently fined before bottling.

Technical Details:

Alc: 13.5 %
Acidity: 6.3 g/L
Residual Sugar: Brix at Harvest: 20.9 - 22.6