2022 Lock, Stock, and Teardrops

The 2021-2022 growing season on the Bellarine peninsula was heavily affected by La Nina weather conditions. The cooler and wetter ripening conditions allowed fruit longer hangtime. This combined with lower yields led to some excellent quality Chardonnay despite a challenging year.

Our Chardonnay winemaking is normally relatively simple and this wine was no exception. The fruit is whole bunch pressed straight to barrel. This means that every barrel has different characteristics from different elements of the press cycle. The juice is then fermented in 100% seasoned French oak, allowing it to extract more toasted nut, struck flint, and cold smoke characters.

Once primary fermentation is complete we rack the wine from gross lees and top the barrels. We allow the wine to complete malolactic fermentation fully, as all our ferments are indigenous, MLF can take until Spring brings us warmth.

An elongated MLF is vital to our house style. It reduces the buttery character and creates a rich greek yogurt-like texture; maintaining the salinity and savoury characters of primary fermentation in oak.

We are very proud of our 2022 Geelong Chardonnay and truly believe that it is our greatest Chardonnay to date. We’ve named it ‘Lock, Stock, and Teardrops’ after the K.D Lang cover of Roger Miller’s famous country twang because we are deeply in love with this wine.