| Chardonnay |
| Alcohol | 11.0% |
This wine is a blend of our Old Main Road vineyard planted in 1996 on the Naramata Bench and our McLean Creek Road vineyard planted in 1994 in Okanagan Falls. The juice was cold settled for two days then transferred off its heavy sediment to a stainless steel vessel. A long cool fermentation of four weeks ensued and the wine was left on its fine lees for four months. The combination of vineyard sites, vine age, and production method create a well-rounded, fruit-driven Chardonnay that encompasses the region as a whole.
In 2013 we had a classic Okanagan Valley season up until September; a typical spring with average rainfall and temperatures from mid-April to mid-June. From June to the end of July we had incredible weather with temperatures in the mid to high twenties and little rainfall, flowering during this time went through without delay due to the ideal climatic conditions. Through the critical veraison period from early August through to early September the daytime temperatures were typically in the low to mid thirties. In the third week of September we had unseasonably poor weather with cool and wet conditions for nearly a week. This lead to concerns of bunch rot diseases such as botrytis and sour rot in some varieties. As we normally pick our chardonnay earlier we had very little disease incidence with what little there was being cut out of the bunches during harvest. We did harvest later than normal to let the fruit respire all the moisture the vines took up from the September rain period. Hand harvested on the 27th of September and the 5th of October. ~Chris Carson
