Astrolabe Chardonnay 2020

Astrolabe Province Chardonnay

Astrolabe Province Chardonnay has aromas of full ripe melon and dried stone fruits and fig, light nut meal and brûlée notes, with some light leesiness. A wine of gentle creaminess and elegant texture, with tropical and stone fruit flavours, pleasing weight and long, dry finish.

Great with poultry, pork and light game, creamy seafood and pasta dishes, mushroom risotto, and paella.

''The Astrolabe Province Marlborough Chardonnay is made from grapes grown at Astrolabe Farm Vineyard in the lower Wairau Valley and Wrekin Vineyard in the Southern Valleys. We hand-pick the grapes and whole-cluster press to reduce phenolic structure and allow attractive grape solids fermentation characters to come through. The wine is then aged in French-oak barrels, lees-stirred and allowed to undergo malolactic fermentation to give structure, body and complexity. I enjoy complementing the natural stonefruit and citrus flavours of our Chardonnay grapes by building aromatic complexity and texture during winemaking to craft an elegant, dry and mouthfilling wine.''

Simon Waghorn, Winemaker.

Simon Waghorn is a winemaker. Astrolabe Wines is a winemaker label.

Astrolabe was created in 1996, and is a culmination of a winemaking career that began in 1982. All Simon’s skill and experience combine to capture the essence of Marlborough in wines of purity, focus and elegance.

Simon is fascinated by the distinctive qualities of the Awatere Valley, Wairau Valley and Kekerengu Coast sub-regions of Marlborough, whether bottled alone or when blended.

Astrolabe is a personal project for winemaker Simon Waghorn and his wife, Jane. Astrolabe produces a range of wines that express the purity and intensity of fruit flavours naturally afforded by the climate and soils of the Marlborough region.

An Astrolabe is a navigational device whose name translates as “star taker”, and it was used by navigators to determine latitude by the stars.

As well as being a navigational instrument, L’Astrolabe was the name of the ship of French explorer Dumont d’Urville who explored the Marlborough coast in 1827.

Simon chose the name Astrolabe because of the historic ties with Marlborough, and he liked the connotations of exploration and discovery.

Astrolabe Province Chardonnay - Hay Wines