Finding My Chardonnay Palate

Finding My Chardonnay Palate

In November I attended a ‘Virginia vs. The World’ blind tasting hosted by Andy Reagan at Jefferson Vineyards.  The intent of the tasting was to explore the subject of price competitiveness of Virginia wine in a blind comparative tasting setting.   Following the tasting, I wrote a smart little piece here on the blog entitled ‘Is Virginia Wine Overpriced?‘

This piece was republished in the Spring 2011 issue of Virginia Wine Lover Magazine, which resulted in a welcome amount of positive feedback.  Interestingly, I also received feedback from several dedicated Chardonnay fans taking exception to my casual dismissal of Chardonnay.  Several of those who contacted me cited the following introduction to the Chardonnay blind tasting flight,

Boring. Snorefest.  I respect the fact that Chardonnay is a global workhorse, but I simply cannot get into this varietal…

The most curious of the Chardonnay supporters came from a neighbor who happened upon the Virginia Wine Lover Magazine at a local wine shop.   I was introduced to her opinion on Chardonnay while walking my dogs when she announced from the other side of the street that ‘she had a bone to pick with me.’  I have a natural tendency to say or do things that draw the ire of people, especially neighbors, so I was pleasantly curious as to this particular bone to pick.

My neighbor first noted her surprised to see my article and me in a local wine magazine, and then went on to tell me how much she really likes Chardonnay.  As it turns out, Chardonnay is the drink of choice of our neighborhood Bunco Babes. (Editorial note for context: Bunco is a dice game that is played by small groups, particularly popular among suburban neighborhood ladies.  Bunko may also be found in Webster’s under ‘Monthly Neighborhood Gossip Time.’)

Given some of the pro-Chardonnay feedback I received, I took the occasion of Virginia Wine Week last week to revisit the subject of Chardonnay.   I opened five Virginia Chardonnay’s throughout the week – my two favorites of the bunch:  Jefferson Vineyards 2009 Chardonnay and Chatham 2009 Steel Chardonnay.

Jefferson 2009 Chardonnay: I tend to like Jefferson Vineyards’ entire lineup, but this Chardonnay is near the bottom.  The first sniffs and sips were muted, which I attributed to being too cold.  Pleasant apple, stone, and lemon aromas were revealed as the wine warmed.  I picked up the same apple and stone flavors in the mouth with reasonable acidity.  The crab leg pairing made this wine better.  Although I did enjoy this wine with dinner, this one didn’t wow me.

Chatham Vineyards 2008 Steel Chardonnay:  I’ve had more Chatham Chardonnay than any other, Virginia or otherwise.  Our family spends a lot of time on Virginia’s Eastern Shore during the summer months, and Chatham is the closest respite from an overcrowded family cottage.  Since there is an abundance of fresh-caught Chesapeake Bay seafood available in the summer, I tend to pair Chatham Chardonnay’s with crab cakes or local mussels and always enjoy the pairing.  Light gold in the glass, I get pungent lemon and grapefruit aromas with hints of tropical fruits on the edges that keep the lemon contained.  In the mouth, lemon sweetarts dominate. In looking back at my old tasting notes, I seemed to enjoy this wine much more during the summer months.  Time and place do matter.

I rarely, if ever, make a call for comments, but I am very curious to hear from Chardonnay fans with their ‘must try’ bottle, and from Virginia wine enthusiasts with their favorite Virginia Chardonnay.  Take a couple of minutes to post a comment, please.

Up next in my in ‘Finding My Chardonnay Palate’ experiment is a high-end (code word: perhaps overpriced) California Chardonnay tasting with a couple friends.  I’m brining the Ramey Chardonnay that was gifted to me by my mother-in-law last year.

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Patz & Hall & Twitter Taste Live

Last night I had the chance to participate in a Twitter Taste Live event featuring Patz & Hall wines – the 2008 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay and the 2007 Jenkins Ranch Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, the Taste Live format provides an opportunity for a group of wine bloggers, throughout the US, to taste the same wines and share their tasting notes and thoughts live via Twitter.

Although Patz & Hall wines are widely available, this is my first time trying their wines – yet another benefit of the Twitter Taste Live events, trying wines I may not have otherwise tried.

We started with the 2008 Sonoma Coast Chardonnay.  $35 retail.  This wine was a pre-release special – the release date is next month.  This 100% chardonnay is made from fruit sourced from several well-known vineyards throughout the Sonoma Coast.  I have not been a big fan of California Chardonnay because of the pungent oaky butter popcorn that dominates the Cali Chards, but this one is an exception.  I really liked the lack of pungent butter, complexity, and how it evolved throughout the night.  Initially I picked up stone along with peach and apricot, and, as the wine warmed, aromas of pear and Bubblicious gum really came through.  Nice acidity that kept the fruit lively.  About 9,000 cases produced.

Our second, and final wine of the taste live event was the 2007 Jenkins Ranch Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir.   $45 retail.  100% pinot.  This wine initially displayed a distinct Chinese restaurant aroma – the smell that hits you when you walk in to a Chinese restaurant.  The aroma wasn’t good or bad – just a bit unusual.  Thankfully, this wine really opened up with some air and came alive with nice cherry, spice, raspberry and pomegranate components with a long cherry-raspberry candy finish.  In the end, I feel this wine could benefit from some age, as did several of my fellow bloggers.

Thanks for the folks and Bin Ends and Patz & Hall for organizing this tasting.  Be sure to check out the Patz & Hall blog and follow them on Twitter, @PatzHall.

*Disclaimer: I received both Patz & Hall wines as samples to participate in the Taste Live event.

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WBW 61 – At The Source

September marks the 61^st monthly gathering of wine bloggers for the virtual wine tasting, Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW).  

WBW founder, Len Thompson, served as the host for this month’s WBW, and the theme for this month is “at the source.”  For this month, we were challenged to feature a wine based on a personal visit to a winery rather picking up a bottle at a local wine shop.  Len noted that bonus points would be awarded if we taste with the winemaker.  

Since there are now over 140 wineries here in Virginia, one would think finding time to visit one of the wineries nearby would be easy.  Unfortunately, given my travel schedule I haven’t been home more than a day or two at time in the last couple of months so I wasn’t able to visit a Virginia winery.    Instead, I visited a winery 3,000 miles away – I was able to carve out some time during a recent trip to Nor Cal to visit a few wineries including White Rock Vineyards.

White Rock Vineyards is a 36-acre property located in Napa, tucked off of the Silverado Trail.  I met White Rock winemaker, Christopher Vandendriessche, via a mutual friend and thankfully he was available to meet during my trip.  Christopher gave me the star treatment (or blogger friend of a friend treatment – which was really good) during my visit – gracious with his time, barrel samples, current release tasting, and lunch (ups to Kent Fortner for the lunch as well).  Most importantly, he shared the story of his family and their vineyards, which is what I appreciated most. 

The Vandendriessche family purchased the White Rock property in 1977.  Christopher grew up on the property, and he, along with his brother, actually planted one of the vineyards as part of a high school project.  (I think I recall him telling me that he did most of the work).  Although the Vandendriessche’s planted all of the vines used for their current wines, vines have occupied space on the grounds since the 1860’s.  To the Vandendriessche’s credit, no pesticides have ever been used on the land.

As part of his training to take over winemaking responsibilities at White Rock, Christopher studied the art of winemaking in France and Spain.

White Rock Vineyards 2007 Chardonnay  - $30/bottle.  Just under 1,000 cases produced.  13.9% alcohol.  I took this bottle to a Labor Day seafood party at our friend’s house.  I paired this one with the oyster course – wow, stellar pairing!!!  I polled the partygoers who tried this wine, and the host’s first comment was “very well balanced.”  I couldn’t agree more. On the nose I picked up hints of mineral, citrus along with buttered toast with peach preserves spread on it.  A Chablisish mouthfeel if that makes sense – had a mouth of mineral supported by light peach, apricot and Werther’s candy.  Although I picked up buttered toast throughout this wine, it wasn’t the over-the-top movie popcorn butter that victimizes so many California Chardonnays. This wine was slightly different than when I tasted at the winery – my tasting notes do not fully sync up with experience of tasting this wine last weekend.  (of course I have a great moleskin tasting notebook, but I take really crappy tasting notes when I’m engaged in conversations). During our initial tasting at the winery, I recall much more flinty component on this wine. 

I will admit that I cheated slightly on this one – I visited White Rocks a ‘few’ days before Len posted the details about this month’s WBW, however, I drank the wine that I purchased on that trip over the Labor Day weekend specifically for this WBW. 

If you find yourself in Napa, I would highly recommend making an appointment at White Rock.  You can also follow them on Twitter @whiterockcaves .  A big thanks to Chris for his time and hospitality, and also Kent Fortner of Road 31 Wines for providing me lunch and wine and putting up with my questions.  Thank you!

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Oregon Chardonnay?

Aside from a handful of select Napa Cabs, I feel that Oregon Pinot Noir ‘can be’ one of the most amazing wines produced in the US (just my opinion – if your opinion differs from mine, then you are most likely wrong).  I would drink Oregon Pinot every night if I could reasonably afford to – or if the Willamette Valley Winery Association would just ship up a monthly allotment of wines for me to blog about.  As prices for Willamette Valley pinot noirs continue to climb, they are on the verge of losing a spot on my ‘wines to drink a few nights a week’ list and are moving to my ‘drink on special occasions’ list.   The adage ‘a rising tide lifts all ships’ is clearly obvious in the Willamette Valley.  Even producers of moderate quality pinot have benefited from this rising tide of prices and gotten away with high prices.

One of the by products of the success of pinot noir in the Willamette Valley is the shadow cast over other varietals, in particular Chardonnay.  Historically, the quality of most Chardonnay coming out of Oregon has been questionable at best, and some of it was down right awful.  Realizing the opportunity lost, a small group of winemakers formed an organization called ORCA (Oregon Chardonnay Alliance) that is dedicated to improving the quality of Willamette Valley Chardonnay.  

One of these winemakers dedicated to producing wines that express the full potential of the Chardonnay grape is Mike Hallock of Carabella Vineyards.  Carabella was started by Mike and Cara Hallock back in the 90’s after a 12 year search for a location that “combines the best criteria of top quality Oregon and French terriors.”  That location turned out to be a 49 acre plot located in the Chehalem Mountains AVA in Oregon’s Northern Willamette Valley. 

I had the chance to meet Mike last week while he was here in Virginia speaking at wine maker event at Bon Vivant in Smithfield, VA.  Mike has a background in geology and was trained as a winemaker in Colorado of all places (I believe Mike is the first Colorado trained winemaker that I’ve met). 

As part of the tasting, we sampled five of his Carabella wines including his 2006 Chardonnay made from the Dijon 76 clone.

Carabella 2006 Chardonnay Dijon 76 Clone

At $32/bottle, this one is on the high side of what I typically pay for a Chardonnay.  This price appears consistent with other high quality Willamette Valley Chardonnays in Carabella’s peer group.  14.7% alcohol.  This dark straw wine opens with a strong butterscotch aroma which continues in the mouth.  As a compliment to that initial butterscotch aroma, I found buttered toast, pear and hints of mineral on the nose.  Smooth mouth feel with more butterscotch flavors along with vanilla and some citrus.  Clean finish with more pear.  We paired this with grilled fish tacos that worked very well together.

Although Carabella doesn’t have a tasting room to visit if you are in the Willamette Valley area, their wines are available for online ordering at their site:  http://www.carabellawine.com/home.html. 

Upcoming Travel Note:  I will be visiting Willamette Valley in August and am looking for recommendations on wineries to visit.  To date, I have plans to visit a handful of wineries including Sokol Blosser, De Ponte and a few others.  I would like to visit Amity, Adelsheim and Bergstrom – if any of you my fellow wine bloggers/readers have contacts at any of these Oregon wineries, please let me know.  I would like to make personal contact prior to my trip.

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