2018 Portsea Estate Chardonnay, Mornington Peninsula

 Portsea Estate is a truely unique vineyard property situated at the furthest tip of the Mornington Peninsula. The narrow finger of land that separates Port Phillip Bay and Bass Strait is a picturesque coastline of undulating sand dunes, sandy beaches and rugged dramatic cliff faces. An underlying Limestone bedrock along the neck of land at the very tip of the peninsula formed some two million years ago and is historically and geologically important to the area, with lime burning being a primary industry in the area in the 1800s. 

To Warwick Ross, this limestone-rich land also presented as a prime location for vineyards. Filmmaker Ross, whose family had owned the 'Tintagel' Farm in the area since the 1950s, is a lover of Burgundian wines, and knew the magical effect of limestone on the bouquet of great Burgundies. He refers to 19th century wine historian, Dr. Jules Lavalle, who poetically describes the effect:

...the perfume beneath the rock which the plant knows how to extract...”

Ross planted the Portsea Estate vines in 2000 on the site of early limestone quarries of the 1800s and, in the case of the Chardonnay, directly over the site of one of the early lime kilns. Significant limestone reefs and deposits still exist just beneath the surface.

The vines flourish on sunny, north facing slopes, shielded from the often harsh conditions characteristic of the windswept Bass Strait coastline. The fingers of wind which still manage to penetrate the leaf canopy, serve to maintain the health of the vines by minimising humidity.