(Featured Image: Courtesy Sea Smoke Vineyard)
Chardonnay has something like a 30-year record as America’s favorite white wine. Its deserved reputation for greatness (particularly the white wines of Burgundy) undoubtedly is at least partly responsible for that popularity. Another likely reason consumers have been so drawn to the wine is it can be made in different styles to appeal to different tastes and occasions. Regardless of style, Chardonnays typically offer ripe fruit flavors of citrus, apple, pear, or tropical, and sometimes melon or fig.
Many wineries attempt to emulate the richness and depth associated with Burgundy, the benchmark for the grape. It used to be common in California for such wineries to go to extremes employing full malolactic fermentation (converts sharper malic acid to richer lactic acid) and 100% fermentation and aging in new oak barrels. Such wines are rare today. But the wines below still use significant amounts of these to great effect, deftly walking the line between richness and freshness.
Two single vineyard wines from MacRostie the 2012 “Wildcat” ($38), from an intemperate location in the Sonoma Coast and 2012 “Sangiacomo” ($44), from a historic and prized vineyard in Carneros are rich and full-bodied wines with oak influences but still loads of pure fruit.
Talbott Vineyards has pioneered modern viticulture and winemaking in Monterey since 1982. First with the extreme mountaintop Diamond T Vineyard and then the flagship Sleepy Hollow Vineyard, its wines have built a reputation for power and intensity. These 2012 wines also display impressive balance. The 2012 “Sarah Case” ($52) is an elegant special selection of the best lots from the Sleepy Hollow Vineyard. “Diamond T” ($52) shows the vineyard’s signature minerality and bracing acidity. The “Audrey” ($75) is a complex special selection of the best lots from Diamond T. Impressively, all are bottled in screw caps!
Migration is a winery in the Duckhorn family dedicated to exploring the Burgundian varietals chardonnay and pinot noir as they are expressed in top California growing regions. From 2012 there is a lush Russian River Valley ($32) and rich, intense single vineyard wines from the Charles Heintz Vineyard Sonoma Coast ($55), the Searby Vineyard in Russian River Valley ($55), and Dierberg Vineyard in Santa Maria Valley ($55).
I also found the purity of the 2012 Sea Smoke “Streamside” Santa Rita Hills ($60) from estate grown fruit and the concentration of the 2012 Sonoma-Loeb “Envoy” ($38), which benefits from Sangiacomo fruit, to be excellent.
Even less expensive wines can do oak and malolactic right as with the impressive 2013 Rodney Strong Sonoma Coast ($25) and the 2012 Landmark “Overlook” ($23), a great value blend of fruit from Sonoma, Monterey and Santa Barbara.
Some actually eschew oak altogether fermenting the juice in stainless steel tanks and aging the wine in bottle. These wines can be fresh, lively and vigorous. I was disappointed there were no such wines submitted for my tasting, though the excellent 2013 Alta Maria Alta Maria Valley ($28) had only ten percent see oak and “neutral” oak at that.
More wineries are getting better at balancing the use of oak barrels and malolactic fermentation to compliment quality fruit with the sweet, spicy or toasty elements from oak more as seasoning than as dominant characteristics. Generally, this means less oak, less new oak and less time overall in barrel. Many only undergo partial malolactic fermentation. These are listed in my order of preference but all are recommended.
- 2013 Freemark Abbey Napa Valley ($30)
- 2012 Matanzas Creek Sonoma County ($26)
- 2012 MacRostie Sonoma Coast ($25)
- 2012 Grgich Hills Napa Valley ($42)
- 2013 Ron Rubin Russian River Valley ($20)
- 2012 MacRostie Russian River Valley ($32)
- 2012 Duckhorn Napa Valley ($35)
- 2013 Patz & Hall Sonoma Coast ($38)
- 2013 Frei Brothers Reserve Russian River Valley ($20)
- 2013 Arrowood Sonoma County ($25)
- 2013 Cherry Pie “Cherry Tart” Monterey, Sonoma, Napa ($25)
- 2013 Wente Riva Ranch Vineyard Arroyo Seco ($22)