Wakefield St Andrews Chardonnay, Clare Valley

Description

Wakefield St Andrews Chardonnay is a white wine made with grapes sourced from some of the best vineyards owned by the Taylor family. The St Andrews range is named after the historic Clare Valley wine producing property (established in 1892) that the Taylor family acquired in 1995. The first Wakefield St Andrews wines were released in 1999 and they are only released in the best vintages.

Wakefield Wines is located in the heart of the Clare Valley. The company was founded by wine merchant Bill Taylor Senior in 1969 with the purchase of 178 hectares of vineyards near the Wakefield River in Auburn. Bill Taylor carefully chose the site for its red brown loam over limestone soils ( this is known as “terra rossa”) and the cool climate of the Clare valley. In that same year, 1969, the first Cabernet Sauvignon vines were planted. Since 2000 the company has been run by Managing Director and third generation Winemaker Mitchell Taylor, the grandson of Bill Taylor Senior.

Today Wakefield Estate is one of the most highly esteemed cool climate producers in Australia. Almost all of the grapes are sourced from 500 hectares of family-owned vineyards in the winery which makes it one of the largest single estate plantings in Australia. They do source some fruit from trusted growers in other regions, Coonawarra, for example. The family’s home estate and vineyards are situated in South Australia’s beautiful Clare Valley, in the sub-region of Auburn and stretch to another sub-region border, Watervale. As well as the estate range, they also produce the Jaraman and St Andrew’s ranges. 

The grapes for Wakefield St Andrews Chardonnay are harvested at night, they are whole berry pressed and the juice is cooled to 8C. This whole process takes around 15 minutes and helps to maintain freshness, delicacy and finesse in the wine. The juice is then cold-settled prior to fermentation in French oak barrels. There is battonage (lees stirring) for an 8 week period after fermentation. Finally the wine is aged on lees in barrels, 80% new & 20% 1 year old French oak (tight-grained which is air seasoned for 3 years), sourced from Louis Latour, a specialist Burgundian supplier. After 10 months of oak maturation, then minimal fining and filtration, the wine was bottled.

The St Andrews range comprises this wine and also a Riesling, Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon.