Kleine Zalze Family Reserve Chardonnay 2023

In the cellar

The different blocks used to create this wine were hand harvested separately between 21 and 23°balling. One portion was destemmed and crushed; the resulting juice given 12 -18 hours skin contact prior to settling. Another portion was whole bunch pressed to retain freshness and lend elegance to the resulting wine. After only 1 day of settling, the slightly turbid juice was racked off its gross lees to a stainless-steel tank where it was inoculated with selected slow fermenting yeast strains. The juice was then gravity fed into new 400L French oak barrels and 500L Italian Terracotta. The wine spent an extra 8 months on the lees in the respective fermentation vessels, the resulting blend consists of 50% barrel fermented wine and 50% Terracotta fermented wine with no fining or filtration before bottling.