2023 Schubert Chardonnay

Bright green-gold in colour with an enticing bouquet of nectarine flower and creamy citrus, this wine's complex, mealy texture has been enhanced through gentle fermentation and maturation in fine quality 100% new French oak hogsheads.

The brightly balanced, satisfying mouth-feel remains an emblematic element of the delicate power of this unique Bloodwood style. Medium term cellaring will add to your enjoyment..

12.6% Al/Vol

Vineyard

The Bloodwood Schubert vineyard is to the east of the cellar door on a gentle undulating north-east slope of volcanoclastic loam, interspersed with mass-flow rounded cobbles of crystalline andesitic lava scattered through a quite a friable red clay base. The vines are of the FVI10V5 clone, planted in rows running north/south and trellised to a Scott-Henry trellis system opened to the protected west.

The vines are mostly spur pruned to around 50,000 buds per hectare and with each vine occupying 4.5 square meters of the vineyard, yields are no more than moderate in most years.

Vintage Conditions

The Weather At Bloodwood is always the same; It's Different!

With the continuing La Nina, rainfall and warmth has been a challenge again this vintage with the added annoyance of a series of nasty, localized hail storms leading up to vintage. Yields have continued to recover and are around 20% up on 2022 with some very smart whites and early reds performing well. Both Riesling and Chardonnay are promising while it is another positive year for Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Merlot. The oenological jury hasn't returned a verdict on later ripening reds like Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon but the light under the jury room door is weakening and there is fresh blood seeping along the skirting boards.

Winemaking

The hand-picked fruit was immediately whole-bunch pressed through our air-bag press to 1.1 atmospheres with the super low phenolic juice transferred to an insulated tank for overnight settling and subsequent racking. Some fine settlings were allowed to pass into the racking tank where, under gentle warmth, the juice commenced fermentation. After a Brix or so was converted by natural yeasts, the freshly moving juice was transferred to a mixture of 100% new Saury 3 year Immersion Bent French oak and ANA Selection Venus ML hogsheads and held in a warming room throughout primary fermentation. This is critical at Bloodwood as the autumn nights can be quite chilly and our indigenous yeasts, like us, seem to need some cosseting. Usually, ferment is conducted around 17 C to natural dryness over 23 days or so.

Immediately all activity ceases, the wine is sulfured, lees-stirred, topped up and relocated to our cool (13C) maturation cellar for aging. The fine lees are kept in contact with the wine through weekly topping and stirring, and after up to fourteen months, the wine is bench trialled, cold-stabilized to -5C for 7 days, protein stabilized and sterile filtered into bottle. Schubert is all about fruit and place and as long term devotees would appreciate, Bloodwood can be quite a deliciously fruity place.

2019 Shiraz

Brooding dark carmine in colour, the textured blackcurrant and black cherry infused fruit from this unique vineyard shows a dusting of gentle spice and graphite in the bouquet. This leads on and on to a balanced, yet persistent mid-weight palate of ripe dark cherry fruit, fine spice and delicately integrated French oak tannins. Medium term cellaring will surely add significantly to your enjoyment of this fine Shiraz.

14.5 % Alc/Vol

Vineyard

There are two Shiraz vineyards planted on Bloodwood; the Top Shiraz and the (ahem!) Bottom Shiraz vineyard. Although they are planted to the same clone; are exactly the same age and are both trained to Scott Henry trellis systems, they are on two different soil types. The Top Shiraz is planted on gravelly laminated siltstone at 840metres (Cote Blonde?) while the Bottom vineyard is on darker and slightly richer altered andesitic volcaniclastic conglomerate (Cote Brune?) at 810metres. The result of all this geological geomancy is that the lean top block provides the fruit and perfume while its lowly, higher yielding brother adds a neat dash of white pepper and liquorice to balance the wine in most years. We are enormously pleased to report that both vineyards contribute equally to the “sans Viognier” component of the resultant blend.

Vintage Conditions

The Weather At Bloodwood is always the same; It's Different!

Winter and Spring Rainfall for the growing season leading up to vintage 2019 were around the median with 149 mm for the months of June, July and August and 208 mm for the calendar spring months. There was no run-off into irrigation storages and the long-term drying trend continues. After record heat in January 2019, the run-up to and through harvest was extraordinarily dry and stable. Between 1/2/2019 and 17/3/2019 we only recorded 3.8 mm of rain with temperatures 0.9C warmer than the same period for 2018.

Quality of each vintage is often determined by the stability of the ripening months, so 2019 holds above average promise for us here at Bloodwood even though yields were well down around 30% on a normal year. This is closely related to the continuing and intensifying drought we are all suffering and we give thanks for our limited access to irrigation.

It is interesting that pH and acid levels were all over the shop. Some wines analysed with higher than normal pH levels and lower than usual total acidities if moisture during ripening was an issue. Fermentation, particularly for reds was generally short and sharp without effective temperature control. Early indications are that reds are more than good. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Shiraz and Pinot Noir are all good. Chardonnay quality is a bit patchy because of the extreme heat and dryness although Riesling seems to have coped pretty well with the warmth. Winemaking skill in vintage 2019 was more important than usual.

Winemaking

As I’ve outlined elsewhere, we believe in macro oxygenation during the early fermentation process here at Bloodwood. And this wine is no exception. The top vineyard fruit was hand plunged with plenty of air in an open fermenter, whilst the bottom vineyard Shiraz was treated in the usual manner. A high proportion of whole berries are a constant in all our red ferments, and regular splash pumping over helps bring the tannins into shape early in the winemaking process. The wine spent 28 months in mostly older French oak hogsheads before sterile filtration and bottling in September 2021.

Normal pricing per bottle is as follows:

Total price would normally be $490 including freight.

Mix and Match Miracle, including freight $450