Members Only – Tapanappa Tiers Vineyard 1.5M Chardonnay 2015

The Piccadilly Valley welcomed the Croser family back into the Tapanappa Winery with a typical cool weather vintage of exemplary quality. The winter provided average rainfall and replenished the subsoil but from August to December very dry conditions prevailed, The Tiers Vineyard receiving just 40% of normal rain.

The three spring months and December were much warmer than average, only exceeded by the temperatures preceding vintage 2016 and vintage 2010. The warm dry conditions led to an early and perfect flowering and fruit-set in the Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay and a balanced crop of 8 tonnes/hectare.

After December, the ripening months were cooler than average by about the same amount as the first three months were above average. Hence the 2015, seven month vintage heat summation coincided with the long-term average of 1173 C days. A January rain event relieved developing stress in the vines.

The Tiers 1.5m section was hand harvested on the 16th of March and so unique is this small area of Chardonnay that we made the decision to bottle it separately in the glorious 2015 vintage.

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In 1978 Brian Croser selected the Piccadilly Valley in the centre of the Adelaide Hills as the best terroir to grow Chardonnay for Petaluma Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for Croser sparkling wine.

The Piccadilly Valley is the second coolest (after Foggy Hill at Parawa) and highest rainfall viticultural sub-region in South Australia and with an average heat summation for the growing season of just 1172ºC days and an annual rainfall in excess of 1200 mm. The mean temperature of the hottest month January is 17.7ºC. The Piccadilly Valley is a homo-clime of Dijon in Burgundy.

The soils in the Tiers Vineyard are free draining red-brown clay loams with a high content of clay (50%+) and of rock fragments. The 1600 million year-old Calc-silicate parent-rock of the soil was brought to surface by an ancient fault beneath Tiers Vineyard and small portions of the neighboring properties.

In 2003 the Croser family removed 1.3 hectares of the original Tiers Vineyard Chardonnay, planted in 1979 in the Piccadilly Valley as the first Adelaide Hills vineyard. The area was replanted with the French Bernard clones 76 and 95 on rootstocks on very close spacing and at only 0.5 meters above the ground. This unique section of The Tiers Vineyard produces earlier ripening, fuller flavoured Chardonnay than the 1979 old vine, OF clone Chardonnay on own roots across the centre road in The Tiers Vineyard.