Sentio
Chris Catlow established Sentio wines in Beechworth in 2013 after seven vintages on the Mornington Peninsula with Kooyong Estate, Portsea Estate and Paringa Estate. Sandro Mosele was one of a handful of mentors driving Chris Catlow in his early years. Chris’ passion is for Chardonnay, starting with his teenage years helping Barry Morey at Sorrenberg, another mentor who inspired Chris to complete a double degree in Viticultural Science and Wine Science, setting him up for a bright future in wine.
Chris struck up a friendship with Benjamin Leroux and has completed 5 vintages with him, convincing Chris that a project based around site expression using Chardonnay was to be his focus. Selecting great sites led him to Lusatia Park in the Yarra Valley, the Macedon Region and of course Beechworth. Chris’ winemaking philosophy is to let the site express itself, using a basket press to get maximum control out of this process and to oxidatively handle the juice. Wild yeast fermentation takes place ‘on solids’, in barrel and the wines spend time on lees. Chris only uses one French Cooper (Chassin), keeping the wines in 15% new barrels for 10 months and has a very strict ‘no malo’ policy.
With his reds Chris applies the same approach, finding the site in the wine and not forcing it to fit a style.
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