2017 DAOSA Blanc de Blancs

This is the sixth vintage of our single vineyard Blanc de Blancs from our Chardonnay vineyard in Summertown on the higher slopes of the Piccadilly Valley. DAOSA is made following the Méthode Traditionnelle, (Method ClassicTM ), the method used in the Champagne region of France.Fruit was hand harvested on 1st of March 2016 and whole bunch pressed, retaining only 487.5L per tonne of fruit pressed (even better than the Cuvée in Champagne). This gave very bright acidity, clean juice and good primary fruit characters in the juice prior to fermentation.The juice was cold settled in tank for one week before being run into old 600L barrels for primary fermentation. Once primary fermentation was completed, the barrels were topped and the wine stayed in barrel, with some lees stirring, for a further 10 months where it went through malolactic fermentation. The wine was then “tiraged” on 1st March 2017, by the addition of yeast and sugar to the wine just before bottling, in order to induce the secondary fermentation in bottle. The resultant sparkling wine was aged for more than 42 months in bottle before being disgorged with the addition of a low dosage of 6g/L mid September 2020.The DAOSA Blanc de Blancs 2016 has spent more than 4 years on lees in total, in barrel and in bottle.