This is the first single vineyard release from Bannockburn’s close-planted, certified organic Chardonnay block. It’s Bernard clone 76, planted to 1.2m rows with 1.0m vine spacing, on a north-south row exposition. The soils are comprised of dark cracking clay over weathered basalt and limestone.
For the 2021, a small yield of excellent quality fruit was picked, whole-bunch pressed and settled overnight before being racked to two second-year French oak hogsheads for wild fermentation. One barrel went through malo and the wine spent 11 months on lees with minimal stirring.
A brief note on the clone: Grigsby and Holmes introduced the Bernard clone to Bannockburn to further expand the vineyard’s clonal palette which, in the beginning was mostly Penfolds clones. Like the P58 in S.R.H, Bernard is a Dijon clone and, although Holmes does not like to strongly compare the two due to the different terroir, he does notice a certain chalk tension in the Grigsby Chardonnay compared to the more voluminous fruit of the SRH.