KANGARILLA ROAD 21 SIXMO CHARDONNAY

2021 Kangarilla Road Sixmo Chardonnay

 The 2021 growing season started well with a wet winter and the wettest spring for 10 years encouraging the vines to grow good canopies and a good number of bunches. Summer was unusually cool and dry allowing long even ripening for the grapes to develop intense flavours and fine tannins. Sixmo is a single vineyard of Chardonnay (clone I10V1) sourced from Oakbank in the Adelaide Hills. The grapes were crushed into a Sonoma Cast Stone egg for a wild yeast fermentation on skins. Once the primary fermentation had completed the egg was topped with wine from the same vineyard and left to macerate on skins for 6 months. During this period, we watched the wine develop into an amazing complex multi-layered Chardonnay that at 6 months on skins looked amazingly fresh and tight. It was at this point we decided to drain and gently press the skins. The resultant wine is Sixmo. Why the egg: Fermentation creates currents that encourage the fermenting wine to move around. This occurs in all vessels, but it is most effective in an egg. The egg’s shape provides a smooth, continuous surface (without corners), which allows the wine to move more freely than it would in a traditional barrel or tank during fermentation. This constant movement allows complex flavours to develop through continuous contact with lees – much like batonnage or lees stirring.

Total Acidity g/L 5.81 Alcohol % 13.0 pH 3.37 Bottling Date December 2021 Winemaker Kevin O’Brien The overwhelming floral and herbaceous notes are reminiscent of walking into a really amazing florist’s. There are also beguiling fruit notes of passionfruit, yellow peaches and caramelised pineapple and a sense of creamy vanilla. An orange sherbet bomb explodes and releases a wine with complex layered textures and flavours including a bouquet garni made from sage, oregano and thyme which entwines with fresh apricots and unripe white nectarines. The flavours linger on.