Col McBryde has been working with small batches of Chardonnay for a number of years, although, until now, nothing had quite made the grade to be released under the Adelina label. Finally, he's found a first-rate grower (with the right postcode) that he can work with and thus the first Adelina Chardonnay has been born. The wine hails from the Grigg vineyard in the Piccadilly Valley, high in the Adelaide Hills.
The vines here were planted in 1997 in soils made up of mottled, yellow clays and lots of quartz. The fruit was hand-picked and whole bunch pressed to concrete for indigenous primary and secondary fermentation, then onto eight months, on lees, in seasoned oak before bottling. The name of the wine, by the way, is a nod to the Albert Camus novel L'Étranger ('The Stranger') and, in particular, the main character whose name is 'Meursault'! This wine does not shame that name, at all, by the way.
It's a very fine and compact, salty/mineral, nectarine and gentle spice-noted Chardonnay that is all class. It is simply too good for the price!