Poppelvej Manic Pixie Dreaming Chardonnay 2020

Poppelvej is the tiny, shed-sized winery from Danish Somm-turned-winemaker, Uffe Deichmann and his brother Jens. Poppelvej translates as "road of the poplar trees," and it's a direct reference to the street in the tiny village of Hundested (about 45 minutes north of Copenhagen) where the brothers grew up. It was their shared love of wine that propelled the boys south, eventually settling in the picturesque Sellicks Beach, at the southernmost end of the McLaren Vale. Here Uffe crafts vibrant, minimal-intervention wines from fruit sourced from eco-sustainable vineyards. Everything is wild-fermented with no additions, apart from a minimal amount of sulphur at bottling. The wines crackle with energy and vitality, and like so many other natural producers, sit at the lighter, more elegant end of the spectrum. No over-extraction here! In the winery, the walls are lined with a series of concrete eggs, as well as older oak vessels in various sizes. Anything that will allow Uffe to pull as much flavour from the fruit as possible, without sacrificing its purity or essence.