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WINERY RATING |
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| James Halliday, |
Australian Wine Companion 2011 |
Josef Chromy
has built a new, state of the art winery at the base of the vineyard at Relbia, just 10 minutes South of Launceston. The clean, modern, minimalist exterior provides a home for some of the best winemaking equipment available. Fruit reception begins with a vibrating hopper that gently shakes the grapes into the destemmer, which has a smooth plastic cage in order not to break any berries. The grapes are pumped into the press through a peristaltic pump, using the same gentle technology that transfers live fish or pumps blood during heart bypass surgery.
A high tech German press enables juice extraction at low pressures, giving more delicate aromatic juices. All Pinot Noir is fermented in small batch open top fermenters and a pneumatic plunging device, co-developed by Josef, is used to gently plunge the cap and manage the extraction of colour and tannin during the fermentation. All the equipment and processes in the winery are designed to respect the delicate varietal flavours of the high quality, cool-climate Tasmanian fruit.
Tasting Notes
Colour: Pale golden straw
Aroma: Complex, citrus and white peach with light vanilla oak and creamy characters from barrel stirring.
Palate: A richly textured wine showing citrus, and nectarine flavours with integrated French oak. The palate is rich and full from barrel fermentation but balanced with natural acidity which gives structure and length.
Grapes: 100% Chardonnay sourced from the estate vineyard at Relbia in northern Tasmania.
Winemaking: Hand picked Chardonnay is pressed and the juice is then placed directly into barrels with no settling or fining. The oak is all French barriques and approxi-mately one third are new with the remainder 1 and 2 years old. Fermentation is carried out in the barrels which are stirred weekly to give texture, palate weight and complexity. The wine spends 12 months in oak and is aged at least 12 months in bottle before release. Screwcapped to enable the wine to be enjoyed at it’s optimum.
Cellaring : This Chardonnay is ready to enjoy now but the struc-ture and natural cool climate acidity should enable confident cellaring for at least 15 years.
Serving Suggestions: Full flavoured fish and Rich poultry dishes, especially roasts.
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