Grown by the Cameron family at the same site as the Sauvignon Blanc. Handpicked from two blocks at Lansdowne; a young vine block with a lot of light penetration & sun-kissed fruit, & an older block with a lot more canopy & higher acid fruit with greener flavours. Fruit was destemmed & pressed into tank for overnight settling, before being racked into a first fill D’Aquitaine tight grain puncheon, & a 600L Speidel egg for fermentation. Post ferment the wine spent 11 months in barrel & egg, before being blended into tank. It then spent a further 9 months on fine lees in tank before being bottled via gravity. The 2023 vintage came at the end of a long, cool, challenging growing season. This, combined with Forreston’s high diurnal range resulted in beautifully citrus driven Chardonnay with great acid drive. This electric energy is balanced by some more generous, riper, golden fruit flavours.

Slow Lane is a small winery ran by Federica Marzetti & Dom Smith, based 15 minutes south of Mount Gambier, South Australia (Dom’s hometown).

Slow Lane was based in McLaren Vale for six years, where they were both making wine & working in different vineyards, but something was pulling them down here.

All of the signs were there: Australia’s two youngest volcanoes (Mount Gambier & Mount Schank) only 10 minutes apart, the influence of limestone, healthy rainfall, a very cool climate & incredible diurnal range.
Eventually we pulled the trigger. Federica, who’s been living in Australia since 2020 after leaving Italy, was somehow convinced to shift her life again to Mount Gambier to explore the grape growing & winemaking potential down here.