2022 Buttermans Track Wines Chardonnay

The Buttermans Track Chardonnay vines are planted on a slight westerly slope with rows running north south, hand cane pruned, vertical shoot positioned and bunch thinned to ensure good flavour ripeness and colour. The fruit was hand harvested early in the morning while the fruit was still cool. Whole bunch pressed directly to barrel, wild yeast fermented in barrel, unfined. Natural gravity-flow winemaking. The wine was fermented at cool temperatures to help maintain the fresh fruit aromas and flavours and then matured for 12 months. Estate bottled.

January 2023, very limited release of 70 dozen bottles.

Colour: Pale yellow hue.

Bouquet: The bouquet is elegant, with delicate aromas of lemon, lime, grapefruit, peach and pear.

Palate: Clean, crisp and textured flavour with a vibrant, lingering finish.

Ageing Potential: Enjoy now to 2035

Buttermans Track was established in 1991 by the current owners, Gary and Louise Trist. The vineyard is situated in St Andrews, which is part of the Yarra Valley, cool climate wine growing region. Gary and Louise are joined by Joel their winemaker son. Together the Trist's make sustainable, high-quality wines.

The vineyard occupies just over two hectares. The first planting of Pinot Noir and Shiraz was of ungrafted rootlings in 1991, this was followed by another additional small planting of Shiraz in 1998. All vines are trained to the VSP trellis system with one cordon wire and two moveable foliage wires which are cane pruned and hand harvested to ensure the best quality fruit can be produced.

The vineyard is 180m above sea level at its highest point and has a general north-to-north westerly aspect. The topography of the site ensures drainage of cold air during frost risk periods down towards the gully on the northern edge of the site, which is sloping in a westerly direction away from the vineyard. Since this is a cool climate vineyard vine rows are oriented north-south to take advantage of the inception of the sunlight. Also, north-south row orientation of the vine rows allows full illumination of both faces of the vine canopy for part of the day, eastern side during the morning and western side during the afternoon.