If you haven’t already, check out today’s vintner voicemail. Matt essentially says he makes Old World, Burgundian style wine while staying true to terroir.
He mentions that he’s heard a lot of people say they don’t care for California Chard, and wants to bring people back to Chard. From what I’ve read here, most of the Wooters (regulars, anyhow) are not big fans of the heavily oaked and ML’d Chards.
In other words, we’re well along to being sold already!
My problem - my cellar is overflowing with cheaper whites that I need to drink fairly soon. This won’t be an easy decision.
You may need to put down the keyboard and have a party. Fortunately, you are on the East Coast, so you can kick your friends out in time for the nightly woot.
P.S. Given your situation, hide the expensive wine and let them drink up all of your cheap stuff. If you order now, you should have about 3 weeks to put it all together.
You may need to pick non-woot friends, lest they know that you were cheaping out on them.
Agreed! I bought the Roessler offer and as discussed in the forum, the hint of tobacco was there, but very subtle and not overtly like camp-fire at all. Liked it a great deal.
This is tempting too, but like so many others the last two ww weeks are killing me;) Let’s see if the winery can convince me otherwise…
It is harder to see this time, but Woot spilled the wine again for the picture. Woot, as long as you are willing to sacrifice wine to the photo stage, maybe you should be sending out rat bottles as well?
If drinking most/all of a bottle so you can rig cool props needed to snap these images is what it takes to be a photographer around here, then that is a sacrifice I would gladly make;) compliments to the photo guy once again on this one!
Very interesting producer. I’ve been wanting to try one of their red blends for a while. Not a big Chard drinker–I need to taste before I buy because it’s no guarantee I’ll like it even from a good/interesting producer–so not buying. But this is an outside the box sort of producer from what I’ve read. Good for wine nerds.
Re: smoke taint, I believe that only really affects the skins. Chardonnay is normally crushed with no skin contact. I seriously doubt smoke taint would be an issue here.
“The problem was that the taint did not appear physically until after fermentation of the wine from juice. Research later found that the smoke taint is initially absorbed into the vine’s system through the leaves, not the roots or the grape itself as many has suspected.”
This article mentions winemakers’ efforts to reduce taint in Chardonnays.
There are 9 different Chards on the winery website - they must be real Chard experts. Also, I don’t see the 2008 Durell listed - is this the last of it (or a late Woot launch)?
Hey Richardhod, That’s a fair question as a number of wines from the Anderson Valley had issues with said smoke taint in 2008. But really, that was an issue that plagued our beloved Pinot Noir–not so much with Chardonnay. Two reasons: the chardonnay in the valley–particularly at higher elevations like Demuth–was not too far past verasion, meaning the berries themselves were green, and as hard as BB’s. Contrast that with the Pinot in the valley which was riper with porous skin. The BB’s repelled the smoke. The riper fruit sucked it in. The second reason is that with Chardonnay, you press the juice from the berry and separate the skins immediately (where as with Pinot Noir you soak the skins on the juice). All of the smoke taint was in the skins. So Chardonnay did not have the issues. Hope that sheds some light for you.
Oh my favorite question! The dread Malo! I’ll try not to preach from too high up on my soapbox.
MALO IS NOT EVIL.
You’ve seldom if ever tasted a white wine from France that hasnt completed its Malo. Really. What is evil is the following recipe:
ultra ripe chardonnay + innoculated malo bacteria selected for it’s buttery aroma + high alcohol + new oak
That’s the recipe we’ve all learned to dispise. Our entire lineup of Chardonnays finish their malos. 100%. They are quite simply: wild-yeast fermented, no-oak, full malo, unfiltered chardonnays–which means they have richness and texture (the way that white Burgundy does) without the imprint of oak. Hope that answers the question.
Thanks Tytiger58. There were lots of tricks attempted to fix the problematic Anderson Valley wines of 08. We had our issues with Pinot Noir too–ended up declassifying all of our single vineyard wines, filtering the smoke out with RO, and made a simple Anderson Valley Appellation Pinot–which our restaurant friends in LA and SF were happy to pour by the glass. The wine sold out in 6-months. So, we took a huge margin hit, but found a way to sell the wine.
Richardhod…all of our Chardonnays are fermented on wild yeasts and “on gross lees” which is to say on all the heavy solids that come out of the press. We DO NOT do any lees stirring. Our goal is to use the lees as a natural preservative during fermentation but not to replace the heaviness of oak (which we dont use at all–100% stainless steel is our game) with the heaviness of leesiness.
