The 2024 season in a nutshell was a return to normal conditions, coming off a very cool and mild 2023 season. The spring/early summer was fairly typically with rain and sunshine - not too hot or cold. This led into a dry warm summer most days in the mid to high 20’s. The chardonnay blocks were all handpicked in the middle of March 2024. The fruit was very clean, with the yields of whites up compared to the dismal 2023 season. The winemaking was very easy as the fruit was in fantastic condition. The chardonnay from 2024 are very different compared to the 2023. More fruit power, smoother acid and generosity, this is coming from the sunny season. The wines were almost made in the same way as previously minus some experimentation with crushing the fruit before pressing. The idea was to add more flavour from the skins and solids for fermentation. The 2024 has more texture to it due to this small experimentation. Other than that the juice was sent to French oak barrels on solids (228L and some portion of large format oak, little new oak 12%) , wild fermentation, full Malo, 11 months on lees, 2 months in tank, filtered and bottled on site with free sulphur around 20ppm. The resulting wine is very drinkable, a touch of air is needed as the phenolics are a bit tight. This wine should develop well but I think most bottles will get consumed quickly as slightly lower acid has made the wine very approachable on release.