2023 Clark Estate “Penelope Jane” Chardonnay
$32.00
The 2023 Penelope Jane Chardonnay is a beautifully balanced and powerful wine. Lovely buttery citrus and stone fruit flavours are perfectly integrated with hints of oak to create a fresh but complex wine.
The 2023 Penelope Jane Chardonnay is a beautifully balanced and powerful wine. Lovely buttery citrus and stone fruit flavours are perfectly integrated with hints of oak to create a fresh but complex wine.
Bronze Medal – 2024 Australian & New Zealand Boutique Wine Show
92 points      James Suckling
Aromas of lemon confit, baking spices and grapefruit. The palate is textural and creamy with a fine acidity, giving notes of Asian pears, yellow apples, cookies and orange peel. Good balance with an underlying freshness. Drink or hold. Nov 2024.
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Viticulture
Our Chardonnay vines are still young, growing in an area with more stones than soil. Each year the vines have to survive through harsh frosts, strong winds and stony soils. As a result, yields are always low as the vines divert their energy into surviving rather than producing a heavy crop. The low yields combined with the long growing season of the Upper Awatere valley intensifies the fruit flavours ready for harvest in late March.
Winemaking
Our style of Chardonnay is driven by the cool climate of the Awatere Valley and the use of older oak barrels. The subtle oak flavours integrate beautifully with the citrus and lighter stone fruit flavours of the fruit. Once ferment is complete, the wines are kept in barrel for several months maturing on the yeast lees. Before bottling, the wines undergo Malo-Lactic fermentation, although this is kept to around 30% so as not to dominate the final wine.
Wine Analysis
pH Â Â Â Â Â Â 3.35
TAÂ Â Â Â 7.02 g/L
Alc      14.0%
RS Â Â Â Â Â 0.8 g/L
Penelope Jane is one of the founders and matriarch of Clark Estate. Mother to Sarah, Jennifer and Simon, and wife to Peter. Ever since planting the first vines, Jane, as she is known, has wanted a Chardonnay to call her own. So, it is fitting that the wine made from our Chardonnay vines, where they have had to work hard and battle the many challenges but end up beautifully refined and elegant, take on the name of Penelope Jane Clark.
Our single-vineyard Chardonnay is beautifully balanced with delicate citrus and stone notes, lightly integrated with oak flavours to create a wine that has both finesse and power.
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