Evans & Tate 'Butterball' Chardonnay 2018 (Australia)

Evans & Tate 'Butterball' Chardonnay 2018 (Australia)Mid straw colour in the glass with a touch of green gold. Juicy stone fruit, ripe melon and tinned pear with toasty oak, roasted spices and creamy, buttery notes. Rich, full and seamless. Creamy stone fruits fill the mouth initially with lovely warm spice flavours adding richness and complexity. A long and full flavoured classic Chardonnay. Drinking beautifully now, but will reward careful cellaring for twleve to eighteen months. 2018 was an

Mid-straw colour in the glass with a touch of green-gold. Juicy stone fruit, ripe melon and tinned pear with toasty oak, roasted spices and creamy, buttery notes. Rich, full and seamless. Creamy stone fruits fill the mouth initially with lovely warm spice flavours adding richness and complexity. A long and full-flavoured classic Chardonnay. Drinking beautifully now, but will reward careful cellaring for twleve to eighteen months.

2018 was an extraordinary vintage in Margaret River, with wet winter months followed by a warm spring to promote budburst and a dry early summer perfect for fruit set. Isolated heavy rain then swelled the fruit, with a beautiful late summer of warm days and cool nights; ideal conditions for accentuating the flavour, ripeness and acid balance of the grapes.

The vineyards that grow Chardonnay for Butterball are located on sites in central and northern Margaret River that produce rich, ripe fruit flavours and lower natural acid levels than other locations. The grapes were chilled and softly pressed to liberate the juice, with the pressings added back to the free-run juice to achieve our style. The cloudy juice was then fermented in a combination of new and used French oak barrels and tank using a combination of wild fermentations and a selected yeast used to produce savoury characters. 80% of the wine then went through malo-lactic fermentation followed by maturation on yeast lees with stirring of the lees done fortnightly to impart texture, balance, integration and complexity to the final wine. After this maturation period, the wine was blended and bottled under screwcap.

Evans & Tate Margaret River Expressions range celebrates the spirit of Margaret River with a series of serious wines without the serious attitude. One of the pioneering wineries in Margaret River, Evans & Tate has a rich history of winemaking excellence reflected by the acclaims that our wines have won all over the world. With well over 50 trophies and 2,000 medals won since 1987, we craft world-class wines with distinct regional characteristics. With state-of-the-art winemaking equipment and access to high quality fruit and oak, we craft wines that people enjoy, and lead by example with the quality of wines produced in Margaret River. The winemaking team continuously strive to craft elegant wines that exhibit distinct regional characteristics coupled with intensity of flavour.