The Quiet Work of Lees in Waitaki Chardonnay
Updated: 2 days ago
The white flowers and white nectarine of our 2025 Chardonnay are among the qualities we most want to preserve. There is depth through the palate, yet the aromas retain their lift. The pleasure lies in that meeting of texture and freshness, with the wine’s richness unfolding around its fruit.
Behind it is a combination of cellar decisions. The 2025 was barrel fermented and matured in oak, with 35 per cent new oak and partial malolactic fermentation. Work with the lees forms another part of its development. These processes meet in the finished wine, though each contributes in a different way.
After fermentation
Lees are the material that settles during and after fermentation, including yeast cells and grape-derived solids. Contact with the wine can continue during maturation. As yeast cells release their components over time, this contact can influence mouthfeel and the way fruit, yeast-derived characters and oak are perceived together.
The Australian Wine Research Institute identifies increased texture and integration among the potential benefits of lees contact. It also makes clear that the response depends on how the wine is managed. Stirring changes the contact between wine and lees and affects oxygen exposure. More stirring does not necessarily bring greater freshness or a more complete wine.
For our Chardonnay, the aim is a texture that gives the fruit room to develop across the palate. A floral wine can carry considerable depth. The fine judgement is in allowing that depth to build while the perfume remains clear, so that maturation enriches the wine’s original character.
The separate contribution of malolactic fermentation
Malolactic fermentation converts malic acid to lactic acid and changes the acid balance. It can also influence aroma and mouthfeel. Lees maturation continues a different set of interactions with the wine. Creaminess in a finished Chardonnay can therefore belong to several aspects of its making, rather than a single cellar choice.
The 2025 underwent partial malolactic fermentation. The 2024 completed malolactic fermentation and spent eleven months in barrel. Both began with whole-bunch pressing and fermentation in oak, but they came from different seasons and found their balance through different paths.
Our 2024 notes describe white peach, blossom, lime zest and green plum, with biscuit and barrel texture. In the 2025, floral and white-fruit detail accompanies the depth we find through the palate. The comparison gives us a useful record of how texture and freshness coexist across the estate’s first Chardonnay releases.
Candice Chow’s review of Clos Ostler Chardonnay 2024 awarded the wine 95 points and describes bright fruit alongside integrated creaminess. Readers can follow the individual releases in our vintage archive, or explore the 2024 Chardonnay’s production details and availability.
A white wine with its own place at Clos Ostler
Chardonnay occupies a small part of our limestone vineyard in the Waitaki Valley. Its significance reaches beyond the size of that planting. It brings the relationship between fruit, acidity and maturation into close focus, offering another expression of the north-facing slope alongside our Pinot Noirs.
The cellar work is most satisfying when it becomes part of that expression. Oak, lees and malolactic fermentation each leave their influence, but the lasting impression belongs to the wine as a whole. In the 2025, it is the allure of white flowers and nectarine carried through a textured, fresh palate.
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