Dear UMAMU family,It was a Chardonnay from the Margaret River that brought my parents to fall in love with this stunning wine region in Western Australia back in the 1980s, and our own vineyard in the late 90s. So we are immensely proud to release our own Margaret River Hallmark Chardonnay 2018 from 20-year old vines that Dad planted. The vineyard was blessed with ideal growing and ripening conditions in 2018. Weather was close to average and very typical of Margaret River's mediterranean climate, cool wet winter and mild dry summer. Harvest decisions were plenty and left to optimise quality. This wine has been given much hands-on TLC from pruning to leaf plucking to hand harvesting. Hand harvesting gives us ultimate selection of grapes and thus quality. We harvest in bunches so the fruit skin is not punctured (compared to machine harvesting which harvests each grape off the stem) and left intact and there is no juice contact with skin, preventing unwanted phenolic (contributes to bitterness) being picked up. Fruit can then be chilled down post harvest and pressed cold which is ideal. Gentle pressing of the whole bunch using stalks to assist drainage and reduce extraction of phenolics makes for a fine Chardonnay. Of course the balance to this is the much higher costs for labour and time. Hand picking has been an annual ritual! Read how Mum & Dad came to Margaret River here: UMAMU Estate Chardonnay – Why Margaret River makes best Chardonnay in Australia Check out our vertical tasting of six vintages of Chardonnay and our mix pack all 91 points and above. Cheers!
