Hoddles Creek 'Syberia' Blanc de Blancs 2010

Syberia is quite a unique site. First planted in 2006, a ten acre block entirely to Chardonnay. It has a 5 different clones in the block which were picked out from source blocks on our existing property. It is different to all the other blocks as the rows for this block run East-West rather than North-South. So instead of having morning and afternoon sun hitting the bunch zone, the sun is always overhead of the canopy. This leads to less direct sunlight on the bunches and enables us to pick the fruit at lower sugar levels with the same amount of ripeness.

I did not know this sparkling existed until our Hoddles Creek rep suggested serving it on arrival at our recent Oddero Barolo dinner at Monopole.  WOW!  really impressive - great intensity of leon, lemon pith with bone dry minerality and (with ten years on lees) fine grained nuttyness, brioche, and a real sting in it's tail from high natural acidity. One of the best sparkling wines in Australia. Very limited.

Ian Cook - FWC