Notes From The Cellar » chardonnay

☆ 2009 Elio Grasso “Educato” Langhe Chardonnay

Steve — Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:00:43 +0000

Turning Heads, Changing Minds (Mine, At Least)

I’ve got a pretty good deal when it comes to tasting Italian wines. A very close friend, Gwyneth Hogarth, is the bar manager at Prima, a sublime local Italian ristorante. My wife and I go in there, and the Italian wine flows. It’s why I, a Californian of Irish, German, and Portuguese descent, have spilled so much ink on the grape juice of Italia.

I especially dig Italian takes on chardonny. The “I Sistri” is from Tuscany, but this, the “Educato,” is from Piemonte.

But back to the ristorante…

In the dim lustre of a fine Italian eatery like Prima, there are few things I like better than great red Italian wine. Barolo. Brunello di Montalcino. Chianti Classico. Vino Nobile di Montepulciano. There’s something about the classic red wine flavors, the robusto, the machismo, of the big reds of Piemonte and Tuscany that go so well with not just the food, but the downright sexiness of a great ristorante.

But, whenever I head out to this particular spot, Gwyn always insists I try a white wine or two. Or three. Or four. She’s good like that.

So here I am, staring at a bottle of “Langhe Chardonnay,” whatever that is. I mean, obviously, it’s chardonnay. But Langhe Chardonnay? As it turns out, Langhe Chardonnay is a DOC designation in the region of Cuneo, part of Piemonte. And, as it turns out…

First off, what kind of chardonnay drinker are you? (Assuming, of course, that you are one to begin with.) Normally, I like my chardonnays unoaked. Chablis style. I’m not a fan of over-extracted secondary ML Cali monsters. In general.

Now, perhaps, I have to rethink any kind of blanket opinions I have about chard. The Educato goes through malolactic fermentation, and spends seven months in new French oak.

Seven months. In new French oak.

And it’s stunning.

Light, glistening gold in the glass. Subtle aromas on the nose, subtle subtle subtle. Butterscotch, butteriness. A touch of caramel. All of it subtle and unassuming. (I promise, I will not use the word subtle again. Maybe ever.) Elegant, light on the nose.

The Educato is full bodied, and a touch sweet. Not dessert wine, of course, but the slightest bit off-dry. Understated hints of nutmeg and honey, and a few other spicy notes open up presents on Christmas morning all up in your mouth.

The nose shows off the butter/butterscotch I expect from ML, and the palate has more of the spiciness imparted by the oak. But this works, this is good shit.

I can no longer claim my favorite chardonnays are all unoaked, Chablis-style. Not any more.

2009 Elio Grass "Educato" Langhe Chardonnay

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☆ 2008 Foris Rogue Valley Chardonnay

Steve — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 17:00:06 +0000

Rogue Valley Chardonnay Comes Complete With Splinters

I have friends who drink wine.

The best part about wine, and about having friends who drink it, is that different people like different kinds of wine. Sure, it might make it more difficult to plan a party while keeping everyone’s wine preferences in mind, but it does make for lively conversation.

I have a friend who very much enjoys chardonnay, as do I. The thing is, I like the Chablis style, little-to-no oak barreling, steel fermentation. Crisp, clean citrus and apple flavors. She, on the other hand, prefers the traditionally-Californian style of the big, buttery, creamy, oaky chardonnay.

The problem for her is, I had to amend “Californian” with “traditionally” in that last paragraph. Many of California’s traditional purveyors of buttery, oaky chardonnay (like, say, Navarro in Mendocino, or Cakebread in Napa) are turning in recent vintages to the cleaner, “smaller,” more food-friendly version of chardonnay like that done in Chablis, France. Even Chablis’ oaky cousin, the white Burgundy, never got to the splinterifficness of the over-oaked chardonnays of California.

While I like this turn of events, I also like being able to point friends in the direction of wines they will like. And so, I cannot wait to tell her about this offering from Oregon.

The barrel-fermented 2008 Chardonnay from Foris Vineyards in Oregon’s Rogue Valley AVA fits the “oaky, buttery” paradigm quite well, although with a hint of apple that does lend it some character.

In the glass, the wine looks like it will be a Chablis-style chard, quite deceptively. The wine is a bright, light lemon yellow color. The nose reveals a creamy, buttery aroma however, though it is tempered by a bit of red delicious apple.

On the palate, the wine shows its true colors: it’s full bodied, with plenty of oak and butter, though it is a bit flabby and feels unstructured. There is a hint of the apple from the nose here, but for the most part, you’ll be picking wood out of your teeth after this wine.

Not my cup of tea, for sure… but also not “bad,” per se. Just know what you’re getting in to.

☆ 2008 Sebella Chardonnay

Steve — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 15:00:16 +0000

Sonoma County Chard Leaves Me Dreaming Of Chablis

I am a Chablis fan. Something about the chalky minerality, the incredibly light touch of oak, the focus around creamy custardy flavors just does it for me.

I have a few friends who are much more into the “standard” California-style chardonnay. Butter, oak, lots of it. A color that looks almost like burnt almond or like 14k gold jewelry. Not me. That’s not my style.

This, this is my style.

The 2008 Sebella Chardonnay from Sonoma Valley’s Hanzell Vineyards is a very true-to-Chablis chardonnay. The intention of the winemaker of “following old world Grand Cru Domaine and First Growth Chateau classification philosophies”¹ truly shines through, as this wine sidesteps most of the problems I usually have with California chardonnay.

The wine is a light straw-yellow in the glass, though it fades to clarity at the edges. It’s darker than, and without the green tint of, sauvignon blanc, but much lighter than the “classic” California chard look.

On the nose are a touch of grapefruit, apple, lemon pudding or custard, and granite. Wet stone. The minerality is my favorite part of Chablis, so when I noticed it here, unabashed, on the nose, I was quite excited.

And the wine did not let me down.

The 2008 Sebella Chardonnay is medium-bodied, with a long, lingering finish. Chalk and granite minerality play here, especially on the back of the palate and on the finish. In the meantime, grapefruit, lemon zest, lemon custard, and the bite-you-back of Granny Smith apple peel play around on the front and mid-palate.

This is incredibly drinkable. Very classic. True to Burgundy.

In other words, exactly what chardonnay should be.

Verdict: A-

2008 Sebella Chardonnay

Footnotes

Reference

☆ NV Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box California Chardonnay

Steve — Wed, 15 Sep 2010 15:00:11 +0000

Boxes Still Suck

I’m trying, folks. Really, really trying.

I want to find boxed wine I like. I want to join the eco-friendly, cost-savvy, antiflavor elite-shunning Brave New World™ of alternative packaging. I’ve tried Octavins and cubes and boxes and little 500ml foil-lined wax paper “juice packs” and all kinds of stuff. It’s not selling me, and I’m not buying it.

So here we go. I tried again. I wanted badly to like this stuff. It comes in a 3L box! It costs $19, which is less than $5/bottle! It has some viognier in it!!

Fuck me, it just isn’t any good.

NV Pepperwood Grove Big Green Box California Chardonnay

The 3L Big Green Box is pretty. It’s an obvious play towards the millennial generation, with its sans-serif fonts and almost Apple-like design aesthetic. Plus, I pretty much think all box wine efforts are, at least at some level, about wooing millennials.

The wine is non-vintage California juice, and made up of 88% chardonnay, 10% chenin blanc, and 2% viognier. It gives off a light golden glow in the glass. I don’t know if it’s the room I was in at the time, but it seemed almost iridescent. I’m praying I imagined that.

On the nose—and I’m not making this up now, this was my first impression, jotted into my invaluable Evernote account at the moment I first drank the wine—I get heat and feet. Alcohol sting, a musty gym locker odor, and not much you actually want from a chardonnay-focused wine.

The wine is medium-bodied, with a very short, acidic finish. There is something of a pear aroma on the palate, but in general, this reminds me of Welch’s white grape juice, with the nostril-stinging, throat-irritating burn of alcohol. Yum

Y’know what? On second thought, I don’t want to like boxed wine. I like glass bottles just fine, thank you.

Verdict: sub-70/100
Price Point: $4.25 (per bottle equivalent)

☆ 2008 Tallulah Como

Steve — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 15:00:41 +0000

Napa White Shows Off Less-Common French Grapes

I like white wine. I actually do. If you’re reading this, chances are decent that you yourself are a wine blogger, or at the least you’re kind of a wine nerd. So maybe you haven’t experienced, recently, the concept that so many people have in life, which is that they are either “white wine” drinkers or “red wine” drinkers.

Me, I’m a wino (and a discussion about “taking that term back” would be a worthy one, for another time).

While I once would have sworn up-and-down that red wine is the only wine for me, I have long ago now (or so it seems) accepted that good wine comes in many different—ahem—varieties.

And this, dear readers, is the kind of white wine I get especially excited about.

First off, the varietal makeup here is not something you’re going to be particularly familiar with, as it’s predominantly a lesser-drunk-here-in-the-States Rhône Valley grape (marsanne), mixed with an only-slightly-more-common Rhône grape (viognier) and the Queen of White Wine (and of Burgundy), chardonnay.

More precisely, the 2008 Como from Tallulah Wines is Napa Valley juice, and 53% marsanne, 37% chardonnay, and 10% viognier.

So, what’s it like? Tasty. Tasty, tasty, tasty.

The wine is bright in the glass, and gives off a bright, sharp yellow-gold color. The nose starts off a bit predictable—featuring a pear note off the bat—then starts throwing you curve balls, as some light spices mix with ripe melon and apricot aromas.

The wine is medium-to-full bodied, which I found I expected due to its color and viscosity when swirled. The spice notes from the nose mix with a tropical cornucopia of citrus (mostly orange), pineapple, and cantaloupe.

The fuller-bodied nature of this wine keeps me from describing it as particularly “crisp,” but the tropical, melon-revolving aromas and flavors are so refreshing, that this still works wonders as a chilled summertime white.

Even if you’d never heard of marsanne.

Verdict: A-

Tallulah Wines

☆ 2008 Don Carlo Chardonnay

Steve — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 17:03:47 +0000

From Washington? From Oregon? From The Columbia Valley

On the second day of the 2010 Wine Bloggers’ Conference in Walla Walla, WA, we got a bit of a geography lesson.

The local AVA, the Walla Walla Valley, crosses borders.

See, I’d always thought of the Walla Walla Valley AVA as “Washington wine.” Ditto for its parent region, the Columbia Valley AVA. Problem is, some of the grapes grown in the AVA are grown in Oregon.

As a Californian, this idea is wholly foreign. It’s like when an east coaster talks about driving for five hours and passing through a half-dozen (or more!) states. I live a 7-8 hour drive to Arizona, a 3+ hour drive to Nevada, and a 5-ish hour drive to Oregon. I wouldn’t even know how to get to Idaho from here.

But there it is, an AVA associated primarily with one state, that is nonetheless geographically part of a second.

We took a bus from the Marcus Whitman Hotel into the Land Of No Sales Tax, where I spent about 11 weeks of my collegiate career, and met Lori and Tim Kennedy, proprietors/vintners/viticulturists/etc. for Don Carlo Vineyards, named after Lori’s Italian immigrant grandfather.

These Oregonians are making some fine, fine wine in the name of one of Washington State’s largest AVAs.

The 2008 Don Carlo Chardonnay is a bright golden-yellow in the glass. It’s doesn’t look too heavy or dark, but certainly shows off more color than, say, a sauvignon blanc. The nose is bright and crisp, featuring primarily an apple note, along with a hint of green grass.

The wine is light-bodied and smooth, with enough buttery/oaky character to slake the thirst of those who love the more “traditional” New World chard, but also featuring the apple from the nose and a pleasant cantaloupe note for those who like something a bit crisper and more fruit-forward.

The wine feels just slightly kissed by oak, and should please fans of either style. A fine example of Oregon Chardonnay.

Verdict: B+

2008 Don Carlo Chardonnay

☆ 2007 Felsina Berardenga ‘I Sistri’ Chardonnay

Steve — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 17:25:12 +0000

Chardonnay From Another Planet (Actually, From Tuscany)

The concept and history of the Super Tuscan is one of my favorite stories in wine.

First off, it just sounds cool. “Super Tuscan.” Like a crime-fighting superhero who loves pasta and his nonna. But the best part is, of course, how this rogue brand of Italian winemaking came to be.

See, before the 1970s, everyone who made fine wine in Italy did so under the strict rules laid down by the governmental DOC and DOCG bodies, which defined things like the fact that Chianti Classico is a blend, with sangiovese as the dominant grape, and that Barolo is always 100% nebbiolo, etc. But DOC(G) classifications also define almost every element of the winemaking process, like what to use during, and for how long fermentation can occur, to barrel-aging requirements, picking procedures and methods, and on, ad nauseum.

In the 70s, a winemaker in Chianti Classico had had enough. While he was not the first to do this, he may have been the most famous. Piero Antinori wanted to take the Chianti Classico his family had made for over six centuries and make a richer variant. He removed the white grapes from the traditional (and DOCG-required) blend and replaced them with Bordeaux varieties, mostly cabernet sauvignon and merlot. He called the wine Tignanello.

The thing is, Tignanello was not Chianti Classico, though it was wine made from one of the region’s esteemed producers, and still predominantly featured sangiovese. They could not use the name, and in fact, the bottle had to feature the phrase vino da tavola, or “table wine,” normally a phrase reserved for low-grade juice, which Antinori’s new concoction was not.

To this day, the same is true. DOC(G) requirements have not changed. The Italians have created a new label to stamp on fine wine that does not conform to DOC(G) scripture, “IGT.” This wine from Chianti Classsico producer Fattoria di Felsina falls into this IGT category.

The ‘I Sistri’ is 100% chardonnay, and a dark, rich, lustrous gold in the glass. The nose is also rich and lush, featuring, predominantly, notes of pecan praline and honey. This is not chardonnay as I have tasted either from California, or from my favorite French region for the grape, Chablis.

The honeyed nuttiness continues on the palate, as this medium-to-full bodied white brings the same honey and pecan praline flavors from the nose. There is a little residual sugar, it seems, but this is not a dessert wine by any means. On the back end is the most incredible finish of cinnamon that I have ever tasted, and not some sickly-sweet-spicy-fake cinnamon, but like real, freshly grated cinnamon.

Really quite impressive, actually. Not for everyone, to be sure, and not something I would want to drink every day. But if you’re someone who thinks of white wine as the sole province of summer, the warmth and sweet spice of this wine would turn anyone into a chardonnay-in-winter convert.

Verdict: A-

2007 Felsina Berardenga 'I Sistri' Chardonnay

☆ NV Domaine Chandon étoile Brut

Steve — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 15:00:15 +0000

Supple Sparkler Celebrates Site Centennial

It’s my 100th wine review on Notes From The Cellar.¹

I think it only fitting, then, that my 100th review is that of a celebratory wine. A real aperitif-style sparkling wine from the Napa outpost of one of Champagne’s greatest chateaux, Moët et Chandon.

The Domaine Chandon étoile Brut is DC’s prestige cuvée,² and while it’s certainly no Dom Perignon, it’s a tasty little sucker. Aged for at least five years sur lees, it’s a wine they take very good care of.

In the glass, the wine is an extremely light yellow. Really, it’s off-white. The bubbles are tiny, and though there aren’t a ton of them, they move swiftly and put on a helluva show. On the nose, the wine shows off some pretty awesome notes of shortbread, lemon, apple, and vanilla.

The étoile is light bodied and crisp, with notes of honey and candied lemon zest joining a yeasty creaminess, and the apple and vanilla notes from the nose.

There’s a lot going on here, but don’t be scared off. The Domaine Chandon étoile is a wonderful way to toast a celebration—even one much, much more significant than a wine blog’s 100th wine review.

Verdict: A-

NV Domaine Chandon étoile Brut

Footnotes

To be fair, this isn’t the hundredth wine I’ve reviewed. The Wine Cube got two different treatments, and I’ve done one vertical review of four wines, those of Dunn Howell Mountain, but this is the 100th post I’ve made that has been marked “review.”
I find it hard to believe they even use this term, when—and someone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong—I believe the prestige cuvées from Champagne are always vintage wines

☆ 2009 Salmon Creek California Chardonnay

Steve — Thu, 27 May 2010 15:00:58 +0000

Dredging Salmon Creek To Find A Chardonnay

This is the kind of wine that gets me in trouble.

Not because it’s difficult to review, or because it’s getting a particular score (good, bad, or mediocre), or because a friend makes it or I like the people at the winery, or anything like that.

This is going to make me look like a snob.

This is the kind of wine that if you ask people at a wine shop, they not only won’t have it (it’s primarily sold at restaurants), but they may give you the stinkeye if you say you like it. I’m not here to do that. I still believe to each their own, and that just because I don’t like the wine doesn’t mean someone else can’t. I still believe that. But this is really crappy wine.

The 2009 Salmon Creek California Chardonnay (they also make a more regionally-specific Napa Valley chard, but this is not that) starts off just fine, it glows ever-so-faintly in the glass, a pretty light yellow straw. On the nose is some red apple (not nearly as bright and clean-smelling as a green apple note would be) and some wood.

Did I mean “oak”? No, interrupting reader, I did not. I meant “wood.”

The wine is medium-bodied and shows off an astonishingly high amount of heat for a wine that clocks in at 12.5%. There’s no balance here. What fruit notes are here are very tart apple, and not much else. More wood notes (still doesn’t come off like “oak” to me, really).

All in all, blecch.

Verdict: C-

2009 Salmon Creek California Chardonnay

☆ 2007 Murphy-Goode Sonoma County Chardonnay

Steve — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:00:13 +0000

Murphy Is Goode

Is that the laziest pun ever, up there in the headline? I mean, It’s not Ron Washam lazy, but as far as puns go…

At any rate, Chardonnay Week continues, and with this Sonoma County offering, you get a little bit of both worlds of California chardonnay. It’s not quite all butter and toothpicks, and it’s not actually unoaked.

It’s a happy medium between the two. I could drink this with food (in fact, I did), I could cook with it (in fact, I did), and I could drink it on its own (did that too). This is right in my wheelhouse as far as good, solid, everyday-style chardonnays go. I might personally still prefer sauvignon blanc, riesling, and viognier… but sometimes chardonnay comes calling.

The Murphy-Goode is an excellent answer.

It’s a light straw yellow in the glass, but there is a hint of green here too. It’s not always easy to see (and no, I wasn’t holding the glass up to a green wall or anything) but it’s there. The nose features aromas of oak, grass, lemon zest, and rain.

Yeah, I said rain, wanna fight about it?

The wine is medium-bodied, with a light oakiness, but the wine in general is clean, crisp, and light. There’s a little of that chardonnay “butteriness” here too, but so’s some minerality, a nice wet stone minerality that cuts the butter (haw!) and keeps everything a little more light hearted.

A solid, solid addition to any chard fan’s cellar. Murphy is, after all, Goode.

Verdict: B+

2007 Murphy-Goode Sonoma County Chardonnay