2014 Russian River Valley

Chardonnay
Russian River Valley

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About this Wine

This is a pure, elegant, and focused wine, with lovely aromas and flavors of tropical orange blossom, fresh-baked wheat bread, and wet stone minerality. While flavors are juicy and alluring, they are framed by bright refreshing acidity, which helps to draw this wine to a sleek, satisfying finish.

Library Selection

90 Points

Wine Enthusiast,

Tasting Notes

Accolades

Winemaking

Vintage

Vineyard

Tech. Notes

additional notes

Tasting Notes

Accolades

90 Points: Wine Enthusiast

Winemaking

All grapes went direct to press as whole clusters and were then gently pressed—methods specifically selected to preserve the wine’s more delicate and bright notes. After settling, the juice was racked into French oak barrels for fermentation, and to give the wine just a hint of toast and spice. Three of the barrels were new, and four were one-year-old barrels. The remaining seven barrels were neutral. Though these barrels impart no toast character, as superior fermentation vessels they provide richness and weight to the wine.

Once the primary fermentation was completed, the wines went through a secondary malolactic fermentation. The barrel-fermented wines were aged on the lees for nine months, with occasional stirring to increase richness and body.

The final blend was assembled prior to bottling, which occurred in August 2015, right before the beginning of the 2015 vintage! The wine was bottled using twist-off closures, to ensure the highest quality.

Vintage

The 2014 vintage offered ideal temperatures and growing conditions. As a result, the flavors were able to fully develop, yielding beautifully expressive wines. The vineyards were farmed meticulously in order to limit the vigorous canopies that can be produced in the Russian River Valley’s famous, fertile Goldridge soils. They were also carefully pruned to balance the crop load on the vines and to allow the pure fruit and clarity of these Russian River Valley vineyards to shine through. The grapes were hand-harvested on two different days: Ritchie Vineyard on August 21st, and Mirabel on September 8th.

Vineyard

The grapes for this wine came from two different properties: the famed Ritchie Vineyard planted to the Old Wente clone, and Mirabelle, which is located off of River Road farther west in a cooler portion of the appellation.

Technical Notes

composition:
100% Chardonnay
alcohol: 14.20%
cases made:
14 Barrels, 325 Cases
bottling date: 09/08/2015
aging:
9 months in French oak, sur lie

additional notes

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