The 2019 Lethbridge Chardonnay is made with fruit from the Suma Park Vineyard on the Bellarine Peninsula.  The soils are a shallow sandy clay over a limestone base and the wine produced from this site always has an oyster shell minerality.  The juice undergoes spontaneous fermentation in 100% new French oak and is matured in approx 50% new French oak puncheons.  This vintage has undergone a natural malo-lactic fermentation, although this does not happen in some years, we let nature decide.   We can do this because making Chardonnay with Geelong fruit is very special.  Geelong is considered the Goldilocks region for Chardonnay,  the cool climate means that we can ripen the fruit, with no fear of entering the over-ripe  'tropical fruit'  spectrum and we know that the acidity will persist throughout the critical ripening period.  The chardonnay pendulum of 'big and buttery' or 'lean and mean' is inconsequential to us, at Lethbridge we cast the trends aside and focus on delicious. This Chardonnay should develop over the next 5-10 years in the cellar, retaining acidity and the fruit flavours developing into grilled nuts and baked nectarines.