- Aromas:
- The yeasty and toasty bouquet show excellent maturity from prolonged bottle maturation on lees.
- Palate:
- The palate is crisp, complex and well balanced, with a full flavour and lasting taste.
FOOD AND WINE MATCH:
Lindauer Brut Cuvée is a dry style, versatile bottle fermented sparkling wine that can be served as an aperitif or with any style of food.
CELLARING:
Drinking beautifully upon release Lindauer Brut Cuvée is designed to be enjoyed young.
HARVEST NOTES:
The long cool maritime influenced growing season of the Gisborne and Hawke’s Bay districts, where Lindauer fruit is sourced, is capable of maturing grapes well past the point at which they are suitable for sparkling wines. The timing of harvest is therefore very important and closely monitored. The early season harvest of sparkling grapes ensures that they experience a season which very closely mimics that of more classically defined cool climate regions. The advantage of this early harvest is surety of ripeness and balance, but with natural acidities – the envy of many wine growing regions of the world. The harvest is timed so the fruit flavours and aromas are still in the yellow citrus to green apple fruit spectrum for Chardonnay and fresh red strawberry spectrum for Pinot Noir.
FERMENTATION NOTES:
The grapes are harvested at an optimum balance between fruit flavour, acidity and sweetness. The juice is separated quickly and gently from the skins and allowed to naturally oxidize to remove some Pinot Noir colour and phenolic bitterness. The juice is then inoculated with a range of yeast, specially selected to enhance and complement the sparkling wine characters of yeast autolysis. The juice is fermented quickly under strictly controlled conditions and followed by total malolactic fermentation, all the time staying in contact with the yeast lees. This increases the texture of the wine. After cellaring for at least three months, the cuvée base wines are gently fined, carefully blended and a portion of reserve wine (premium base wine components held over from previous years to ensure consistency and complexity) added. The typical composition of the cuvée is normally 52% Chardonnay and 48% Pinot Noir but this may change slightly from year to year. Finally the base cuvée is chilled and filtered. The blended base cuvée has sugar and yeast added and is then bottled. The bottles are laid on their sides in bins, inside temperature controlled cellars to undergo a secondary fermentation in the bottle. The fermentation lasts six to eight weeks, during which time the sugar is converted to alcohol and CO2. The CO2 pressurises the bottle and gives the Lindauer its bubbles. The cuvée stays on lees an average of 12 months and when the cuvée is considered to have aged on lees sufficiently, the yeast is removed and the wine sweetened.
