Meerlust Chardonnay, Stellenbosch

Description

Meerlust Chardonnay is considered, by many, to be one of the finest South African Chardonnay’s from one of the Cape’s most prestigious wineries.

Meerlust Estate has a long history and the Myburgh family have been making wine at the estate for eight generations since 1756. Current owner Hannes Myburgh (who studied winemaking at Geisenheim, Germany and Chateau Lafite) continues to maintain the family tradition to the art of fine wine making. The Estate is ideally positioned for the production of characterful and complex wines – there are cooling ocean breezes and evening mists in the summertime which allow the grapes to ripen slowly and thereby gaining full, complex, rich and robust varietal characteristics. 110 hectares of vineyards are planted, mainly with red varieties such as Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir. The estate is most famous for their Cape blend, Meerlust Rubicon.

The fruit for Meerlust Chardonnay is sourced from 3 vineyards on the Estate, the first was planted in 1991 and is situated on alluvial Dundee soils which produces rich textured mouth feel and minerality. The younger vineyards were planted in 2007 on Cartref soils giving a greater fruit expression. Crop thinning occurred at pruning and at veraison. Five separate picking stages at optimum ripeness.

Grapes for Meerlust Chardonnay picked by hand. There is partial whole bunch pressing and immediate transfer of free run to 300 litre tight grain Allier French Oak Barrels, 40 % new barrels, 60 % second fill for fermentation. After alcoholic fermentation the wine is racked to remove the heavy lees, returned to the barrels for malolactic fermentation where it is then aged for 9 months prior to bottling.

Winemaker is Chris Williams.

Read more about Meerlust.