The Cellar: Classic Napa Chard

Friday, August 05, 2016

Steffen Rasch, GoLocalWorcester Wine Writer

Despite everything that is going in the very busy global wine industry Chardonnay remains one of the most popular and widely planted grape varieties. This classic grape is grown on all wine producing continents and made into all kinds of styles of wines ranging from sparkling, lean, crisp, steely and acidic to full-bodied, tropical, oaky and creamy. And while most wine drinkers in Europe associate Chardonnay with Burgundy, wine drinkers here at home generally think of California when Chardonnay is mentioned.

In California winemakers produce a mindboggling amount of Chardonnay ranging in price from under $5 per bottle to well over $100 per bottle and in all of the before mentioned styles. To simplify things I like to divide Chardonnay into two categories; unoaked and oaked. While the unoaked or ‘naked’ category is becoming increasingly popular, the ‘true’ Californian expression (in my opinion) remains the medium to full-bodied style with ripe fruit skillfully balanced with oak.

A great example of what I think is a high quality Californian Chardonnay is this week’s featured wine; the limited production, $45ish 2012 ‘Hommage’ Chardonnay from Napa Valley’s Clos Pegase. All the grapes are soured from Clos Pegase’s 365 acre Mitsuko Vineyard. The rolling landscape of this large vineyard has a broad range of soil types, elevations, slopes, and aspects which create countless different microclimates. This results in distinctly different vats of Chardonnay representing the different vineyard blocks. While some will have more sun exposure and therefore more ripeness, other blocks will be less ripe and display more citrus and minerality.

After harvest it is the winemaker’s task to blend the vats and expose the wine to the sort of treatment and oak needed to achieve the desired expression of that particular vintage. In making the 2012 ‘Hommage’ the grapes were harvested over a 5 day period in October. The wine underwent alcoholic, as well as malolactic, fermentation in barrels and was aged for an additional 22 months on the lees (no racking) in 70% new French oak barrels.

The resulting wine is (as one might expect) massive - both in texture and flavor. This is clearly an age-worthy Chardonnay filled with ripe tropical fruits, baked pears, sweet vanilla and honeysuckle. This wine has exceptional length and finishes with the perfect coming together of fruit, oak, citrus and minerality. This is an outstanding wine by itself but because of its rich texture also highly recommendable as a food companion.

Cheers,

Steffen Rasch is a Certified Sommelier and Specialist of Wine. Learn about wine in person by signing up for one of his tastings at the Providence Wine Academy.

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