Frankland Estate produces limited quantities of chardonnay sourced from low-yielding Mendoza Clone vines in the Isolation Ridge vineyard. This clone of chardonnay is renowned for its millerandage or ’hen and chicken’ combination of large and small berries in the same bunch. This results in low yields, especially where the proportion of small berries is high and, typically, produces highly concentrated flavours. In recent vintages with the aim of making our chardonnay fresher and tighter focused we have carried out extensive trials of earlier picking dates, more careful fruit selection criteria and the use of larger barrels for oak treatment. The current release of Frankland Estate Chardonnay reflects the lessons learned from these trials. The earlier picking dates are reflected in a more tightly focused, firmer-structured wine with higher natural acidity but no less intensity or complexity in fruit flavour. Our trials with larger barrels allowed us to obtain the textural benefits of oak treatment without running the risk of imparting too much oak flavour into the wine. The result is an elegant, complex wine with peach, nectarine and grapefruit flavours supported by refreshing natural acidity and subtle oak.

Producer

Fran­k­land Estate was estab­lished in 1988 by Bar­rie Smith and Judi Cul­lam who con­tinue to be actively involved in every aspect of the vine­yard and win­ery. They are now assisted by their daugh­ter Eliz­a­beth Smith, son Hunter Smith and a small, hard­work­ing team who enjoy the diverse and idio­syn­cratic chal­lenges asso­ci­ated with work­ing in a fam­ily business. The Iso­la­tion Ridge vine­yard lies on part of a farm where the fam­ily have run a wool grow­ing enter­prise since 1974. The deci­sion to diver­sify their farm­ing inter­ests was inspired and informed by a tour of French vine­yards Bar­rie and Judi under­took in 1985 and also by two vin­tages they worked at Chateau Sene­jac in Bordeaux. The wine­mak­ing philoso­phies at Fran­k­land Estate reflect these influ­ences as well as the hard-earned lessons gained from some 17 vin­tages in the Fran­k­land River region. Our approach to wine­mak­ing is based on the prin­ci­ple that the most sig­nif­i­cant char­ac­ter­is­tics of a wine come from the soil and the vine­yard envi­ron­ment. We aim to make wines that reflect nature rather than the hand of the wine­maker. This is the basis of our com­mit­ment to sus­tain­able farm­ing and to work­ing the land in accord with the cycles of nature. We care­fully nur­ture the health of the soils in our vine­yard and only take from our vine­yards as much as can be replaced by nat­ural processes. Our use of viti­cul­tural prac­tices will result in us gain­ing organic cer­ti­fi­ca­tion in 2009 but is already evi­dent in the com­plex­ity, depth and inten­sity of flavour in our wines.