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Lethbridge Chardonnay brings together fruit from the Lethbridge home vineyard and three other cool, rocky sites in the Geelong and Henty GIs. The Hat Rock vineyard is located on the Bellarine Peninsula, midway between Drysdale and Portarlington. Named after a hat-shaped rocky outcrop on the shore of Corio Bay, a short distance from the vineyard, it was planted in 1996 and sits on a gently undulating slope that faces north. The soils are volcanic clay/loam overlying limestone, and the cooling effects of the bayside location moderate temperatures in the warmer months. The Suma vineyard, on the other side of the Bellarine Peninsula overlooking Swan Bay, sits on shallow red clay soils over limestone. The salty sea air and chalky soils bring a distinctive savoury/mineral quality to the blend. The Henty portion comes from Jack and Lois Doeven’s well-established, cool site in Drumborg, home to schist soils and low-yielding vines. Closing the circle is the Lethbridge home vineyard, which was planted in 1996 and is the Moorabool Valley’s coolest site. It’s a low-yielding site that sits at 270 metres with thin black clay topsoil on bluestone and honeycomb basalt above limestone bedrock. Yields across the sites average out at a meagre 25 hl/ha.
The parcels are kept separate but are vinified the same way: whole bunch pressed, wild fermented in 100% new oak, full malolactic conversion and maturation in 30% new wood for 11 months. All barrels are custom-built by John-Louis Bousset to Lethbridge specifications, and the Chardonnay vessels, in particular, are very lightly toasted. This is top shelf Chardonnay by any measure: vivid, succulent and vibrant in flavour, with super impressive depth, texture and length. The balance is masterful.