In the Adelaide Hills, siblings Jasper and Sophie Button are creating some seriously delicious natural wine – and before you screw up your nose at the sulphur-y, mineral-y characteristics of this winemaking process, give the very drinkable ABCD Chardonnay a try.
The Buttons’ farm at the top end of the Basket Range valley boasts 12 acres of vineyards and has been in the family for 20 years, with their chardonnay grapes harvested from two different parcels of land in the same valley. The family moved to natural and organic winemaking practice around four years ago, and the fruits (pardon the pun) of their labour are starting to show.
The 2016 ABCD Chardonnay is a crisper, more acidic take on the generally warmer, more vanilla-y flavour of a chardonnay, while still maintaining the stone fruit flavour often associated with this style of wine.
“The fruit flavour development in the chardonnay vineyards came on very early this year before sugars allowing us to make complex wines with low alcohols and lingering acidity,” Sophie Button says.
“A component of this wine saw 90 days skin maceration in stainless before being pressed, giving a chalky phenolic texture to the wine.”
There is also a distinct saline minerality showing in the wine that Button says is due to “the 25-year-old vine roots [that] have found the sandstone bedrock in the vineyard.”
Chardonnay is a full-bodied wine which is often avoided in the summer months, but this fresh take on the classic variety makes it great summer drinking.
Adelaide Hills VIC RRP $40.00