Winery & Vintage Info
Petaluma is committed to producing the very best wines from South Australia’s most distinguished viticultural areas.
The Adelaide Hills received excellent winter rainfall in 2015, before an incredibly dry spring. The month of December then broke all records, being the hottest December on record. The region then experienced a devastating frost on the 27th of November, incredibly late. Many Hills vineyards sustained major damage, with young shoots being burnt off, especially in lower lying areas. Some of our growers lost significant tonnages, devastating after the season looked so promising. Then in the week of the 22nd of January the heavens opened and up to 80mm of rain fell across the region. More rain came from the 2nd to the 16th of February, causing worries about disease pressure. Fortunately, programmes in place proved sufficient, and we began picking Chardonnay on the 16th of February, finishing on the 2nd of March.
The fruit was transported to our winery near Woodside, de-stemmed, crushed and chilled and the juice separated from skins and seeds in air bag tank presses. This juice was then cold settled for a few days, before racking the partially clarified juice onto our chosen yeast culture to conduct the alcoholic fermentation.
This fermentation was in a combination of stainless steel tanks (50%), and French oak barriques (225 litres), hogsheads (300 litres) and puncheons (400 & 500 litres). Towards the end of the primary fermentation, the wines were inoculated with bacteria to encourage the malo-lactic fermentation (MLF), the conversion of hard malic acid into softer lactic acid. The MLF also complexes the wines, adding creaminess and hints of butter.
The wines then rested in barrel, spending a total of 5 months in oak, and slowly settled and clarified. In July, the wines in oak were emptied and blended with the tank fermented batches, the blend cold settled, before filtration and bottling in late July. Winery Notes
