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Date Printed: 5/24/2013
Thorn-Clarke Milton Park Barossa Chardonnay 2002
Thorn-Clarke Milton Park Barossa Chardonnay 2002
 (search item no. 59826)
The Wine Advocate rating: 87 points
PRICE ON 5/24/2013: $8.99

Winemaker's Notes:

 This vineyard is located at Mt Crawford (Eden Valley), one of South Australia's consistently coolest grape growing sites. Citrus, lime, sweet melon fruit, with hints of new French oak combine with a creamy lingering finish to create a fine example of this great variety. Inhibiting malolactic fermentation has preserved crisp natural acids which highlight the varietal fruit of this wine.

Winemaking: Crushed and de-stemmed then pressed using a membrane press. Pressings kept separate from free run then fined and re-blended back to the free run. Fermented using French yeast at 12 - 15°C. The ferment was very long and took 5-6 weeks. The light fluffy lees were re-incorporated to the wine and mixed every 2 weeks to add mouth feel and structure. The wine was racked from lees after 4 months, filtered and bottled.

"The delicious, fruity 2002 Chardonnay Milton Park exhibits plenty of tropical fruit along with peach and honeysuckle. Medium-bodied and fresh, it is best drunk over the next year." - Wine Advocate

My Notes:

Additional wines from Thorn-Clarke:

About Thorn-Clarke:

 The Thorn-Clarke family already has a long history in the Barossa - six generations of involvement in the region's world famous wine industry. The name Thorn-Clarke derives literally from the relationship between two long time Barossa families. The winery owners are David and Cheryl Clarke (nee Thorn) and their son Sam is manager of the winery. Cheryl's brother, David Thorn manages the Mount Crawford and Kabininge vineyards for Thorn-Clarke Wines. Her father Ron Thorn has one of the oldest Shiraz vineyards in Australia and possibly the world on the Thorn family property 'Clifton' outside of Angaston. Earliest records show this old vineyard was in existence in 1854.

Husband and wife, David and Cheryl Clarke both have deep family roots in the Barossa. Cheryl Clarke's family, the Thorn's, have been grape growers in the Barossa since the 1870's.

David Clarke's family were pioneers in the Barossa as well but most famously in the mining of gold from the Barossa Goldfields. One of his ancestors was James Goddard who was the responsible for opening the Lady Alice gold mine in the Barossa goldfields and which was the largest gold mine in South Australia at the time. It has been David's love of the wine industry that saw the planting of the Kabininge vineyard outside of Tanunda in 1987. The planting of the Kabininge vineyard represented the start of a deeper involvement by the family in the Barossa wine industry.