Chalmers Fiano 2021 (6 Bottles) Heathcote, Vic

$228.00 GST Included

AUSTRALIA WIDE SHIPPING INCLUDED

The Chalmers know how to bring out the personality in all the varieties they grow and this delightful Fiano is no exception. This example from 2019 is utterly delicious, having intense fresh pear and lemon flavours accented by crushed roasted hazelnuts. Supporting the wine is a sophisticated phenolic frame which, in addition to channelling the flavours through the palate, shapes the wine and gives it a pleasant gentle astringency. The unique flavour and killer structure make it a must-have drop for 2021.
Toni Paterson MW, Gourmet Traveller WINE 

Fiano is a vine variety this visionary grape-growing family first imported into Australia in 2002 and made a first wine from back in 2005. The vines grow on the Chalmers vineyard’s red Cambrian soils at an elevation of 150-170m.

The grapes for the 2019 Chalmers Fiano were handpicked on 27th February 2019. The fruit was pressed as whole bunches and the must fermented with indigenous yeast in stainless steel. It was then aged for 10 months in a seasoned chestnut botte. This vegan-friendly wine was made with no additions apart from a pinch of sulphur.

It’s a generous, balanced style with notes of lemon curd, dandelion and pine needle, finishing fresh with an appealing soft, pithy bitterness.

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Description

So rather than work with a winemaker whose approach is to craft and mould a great wine using all the tools and techniques at hand, they set out to work with a winemaker who would let the fruit speak for itself, without interfering too much in the process. The wine in bottle had to be an honest and transparent translation of the grapes, the season and the vineyard.

For this reason, from their first vintage in 2003 Chalmers worked with Kooyong winery whose then winemaker Sandro Mosele was a proponent of minimal intervention winemaking; now a somewhat overused industry buzz word but back then a rare but growing philosophy in Australia. Some of the Chalmers wines are still made at Kooyong while others are now being made by the Chalmers family themselves at their Merbein winery, either way the philosophy remains the same: Wild ferments, no acid additions wherever possible, no filtration or fining processes that aren’t necessary.

In the vineyard every care is taken to grow the grapes with the least environmental impact using organic nutrition and fungicide programs and non residual weed control. Grapes are all harvested by hand at the optimum balance ripeness and acidity as determined by flavour tasting. The hand picked fruit is refrigerated overnight before processing the next day.

The combination of unique characteristics from the varieties and sites with mindful, hands-off winemaking leads to authentic expressions which create the common thread across the diverse ranges of wine made by Chalmers.

CellarHand

CellarHand is a fine-wine importer and wholesale distributor, with a portfolio featuring some of the most sought-after estates of Germany, Austria, France and Italy, as well some of the greatest producers from Australia and New Zealand. Our ethos has always been to build a portfolio as you’d construct the perfect wine list. We work with small, family producers who express the best of their regions. The wines we sell are the wines we enjoy, and the people who make them are like family to us. They are wines that taste of where they come from, and though they’re steeped in history and stamped with the signature of their terroir, they’re more than ever relevant – and desirable – to the Australian diner of today.