Port Phillip Estate Chardonnay 2010
Tasting Notes
Vineyard
Port Phillip Estate is located at Red Hill on the Mornington Peninsula. The maritime climate and southerly latitude combined with the estate’s deep red loam soils are ideal for cool climate viticulture. The vineyard is set in a sheltered natural amphitheatre with north and north-east facing slopes providing excellent drainage and exposure to sunlight.
Vintage
The 2009 – 2010 growing season began with an earlyish budburst, despite the 2009 Winter being appropriately cool and giving good rains which fully recharged the soil profile. Most vineyards, having produced such a tiny crop in 2009, had restocked nutrition reserves in their permanent wood and expressed a moderate to slightly high crop potential early on. Rains came quite frequently through the Spring and early Summer, reminding growers of earlier seasons before the run of recent warmer vintages. An unseasonal warm spell in October/ November (before flowering) combined with the rains to induce high vegetative vigour in some blocks. These circumstances combined to pull back the yield potential slightly, through imperfect fruit set. Most blocks thus did not require thinning at veraison. Conditions from flowering and through the ripening period were a welcome moderate to cool and even though harvest was still early and in the pattern of the last four years, the 2010 vintage provided an exciting opportunity to make wines of beautifully balanced ripeness and excellent regional expression..
Viticulture
The Port Phillip Estate Chardonnay is a single site wine produced from 1.82 hectares of estate vineyard. The block was planted in 1987.
Winemaking
The fruit is whole bunch pressed and barrel fermented in French oak (15% new) without yeast inoculation. The sur lie maturation period is 12 months.
Wine Analysis
Alcohol – 13.5%
Tasting Note - September 2011
Bright light lemon colour. A fine nose of fresh cream, green apple and wet chalk, with a subtle flintiness and hints of crunchy white peach. The palate walks a chalky mineral line, fleshed out with the creamy and delicate stone fruit notes. Pure, linear and with savoury acid crunch to length, promising a building of power to come.
Tasting Notes
Port Phillip Estate Chardonnay 2010
Reviews
Note - reviews are for 2009 Port Phillip Estate Chardonnay
JAMES HALLIDAY WINE COMPANION 2012
KOOYONG AND PORT PHILLIP ESTATE
COMBINED WINERIES OF THE YEAR 2012
Bright colour; a savoury and complex wine showing charcuterie, lemon blossom, grilled cashew and fennel; the palate is tightly wound, fresh, vibrant, long and complete, offering texture, crunchy acidity and a linear conclusion. Rating: 96
JAMES HALLIDAY
TASTE.COM.AU TOP 100 WINES, Herald Sun, 8 November 2011
My goodness we like this wine, with each glass already thinking of the next. Ripe, but fresh, stone fruit with wild-like nutty complexity and a hint of funk. The palate is round and generous – that highlights the skills of this veritable winemaking team. Enjoy. Rating: 95 points
TONY LOVE AND DAN SIMS
TYSON STELZER.COM, October 2011
Prince Phillip is your companion for distinguished dining. A chardonnay of intellect, restraint and texture, with a lees- and solids-derived complexity to its finely poised grapefruit. Subtle vanilla and almond notes thanks to seamlessly integrated French oak. Drink 2011-2014. Rating: 94 points
TYSON STELZER
GOURMET TRAVELLER WINE, August / September 2011
An left-field style of fruit-driven chardonnay, with chalky mineral high-notes overlying honeysuckle and herbal aromas. It’s lively and intense in the mouth, crisply bone- dry and the acidity is mouthwatering. Oak is barely there. Rating: 92
HUON HOOKE
THE AGE, Epicure Wine + Food Winter 2011, Tuesday 19th May, 2011
An elaborately made, pale Mornington Peninsula chardonnay with plenty of personality. The nose is a complex, seamless melange of poached nectarine, grapefruit, spicy oak, burnt match and chalky aromas. In the mouth it has an attractively creamy, pleasantly layered feel with excellent balance and persistence.
5 stars
RALPH KYTE-POWELL