2021 'Mack’s Tartan' Chardonnay

Winemaking

Long, cool barrel ferment, native yeast, barrel aged, lees stirred, cleanly racked, unfiltered, unfined

Wine Region

Pyrenees, Victoria - Wadawurrung Country

Grape Variety

Chardonnay

Occasion

Sip

Year

2021

Aroma

White peach, citrus peel, fig, honey, hazelnut

Texture

Golden, bright, weighted

ABV

13.3%

Story

This is a special wine for me. I love making (and drinking) Chardonnay. It was the flagship wine at my first winery workplace on The Bellarine and I quickly fell in love with how much you can do with this great grape. Picked early, it can be used to make racy and lean OR extremely complex and developed sparkling wines. Picked late it can be used to make some beautiful, big, buttery bastards - all from the same grape? Amazing. It was also the focus (and my favourite wine) at the winery in California at which a friend and I did a vintage in 2019.

Mack's Tartan is definitely an ode to both wineries as they shaped how I see my ideal Chardonnay; full and generous with ripe fruit characters, mouthwatering acidity and a deep nuttiness from its fermentation and aging in French oak.

The oil-on-wood painting by Kate Lewis is her take on our family’s tartan and reminds me of our uncle and grandad playing the bagpipes at our family events in perfect squealy harmony.