VJB Vineyards & Cellars 2009 Gabriella Ranch Chardonnay - 4 Pack

VJB Vineyards & Cellars 2009 Gabriella Ranch Chardonnay - 4 Pack
$39.99 + $7.00 shipping
CONDITION: White
PRODUCT: 4 2009 Gabriella Ranch Chardonnay
CT link above

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Previous offer:
3/4/11

What does 1/4 mean for the malo?

Are there 4 stages?

$18 on their website. so $11.75 a bottle shipped isn’t a bad deal.

What’s the drinking window on the Chard?

From the description it sounds as if this offering leans is more of a crisp chardonnay - all stainless and 1/4 MLF (and I am also interested in the response to lassow’s question about what “1/4 malolactic” means).

Could we please get some more data - particularly residual sugar and total acid. Also details on lees aging.

Thank you.

Writeup sounds good, CT reviews are sparse (for all vints) but consistent.

I’d love to hear some WW member tasting notes…kind of looking for a nice deal on some SB, but a good Chard might do :slight_smile:

From what I understand, most chard (and many other wines) go through whats called full malolactic fermentation, where all the malic acid (naturally occurring for grapes) is converted into lactic acid, giving it more of a solid (sometimes interpreted as buttery) mouthfeel.

For a wine that has only gone through 1/4 malolactic fermentation, only 1/4 of the malic acid has been converted to lactic acid and the resulting wine is probably more tart (resulting in the tasting notes that indicate citrus, apples, zest, etc). Combined with stainless steel barrels you’ll probably find a wine that is tart, tastes of apples or citrus fruits, and is outside the norm of the buttery chards that have started to dominate the market.

This is a wine I’d love, but I simply don’t need any white right now :\

Edit: ramblings of a tired college student going through finals and a bottle of wine, I may be wrong, but everything I’ve read prior hints at this.

I’m quite familiar with this info - I used to be part of the ABC crowd, until I had the opportunity to try some unoaked, no MLF Argentinian chardonnay. And I enjoyed it immensely. I’ve also sprung that on some ABC family members and friends, who have been similarly surprised.

That’s why I posed the questions that I did. There are some (many?) of us here who look for precisely this information whenever a chardonnay comes up on the site. After being one of the victims of the Nicholson Ranch chardonnay offering a while back I’ve learned to be careful.

Ah, yeah. The notes (although they are from the winery and can probably be taken with a grain of salt) make it sound anything but a buttery chard. Usually I use the presence of stainless as a pretty good judge that the chard will be something I’d like, although you do lose some character that oak can bring to the mix.

An example, the case of copa del ray I purchased a month or so back in a woot off has pretty much been untouched :\

Hopefully a few people chime in who’ve had it before.

I am deciding if I would like this Chardonnay at a wine.woot price of $11.75/bottle. VJB Vineyards & Cellars show the 2009 Gabriella Ranch Chardonnay at $18/bottle and a “sold out” status. The following is the VJB VIneyards & Cellars description listed on their website:

Hope the wine maker’s description helps others. I picture an elegant pool setting under a blue sky on a beautiful sunny day with a giant floaty chair and a really big bendy straw coming out of the 2009 bottle of wine. I’m not so sure about the bendy straw, but the pop a cork, bask in the sunshine and floaty chair sounds like a lot of fun. Behold the “bask in its sunshine” power.

This raises interesting questions.

Typically, with unoaked whites, malolactic fermentation is considered undesirable.

However, malolactic fermentation can occur unintentionally at any stage in the fermentation, and can be stopped.

Was this a situation where there was an unintentional malolactic fermentation of all of the blend wine? Or, of 1/4 of it? That is, was it an unintentional malolactic fermentation that was stopped at 1/4, or was it complete for a portion of the wine? Or, was this an intentional malolactic fermentation of a portion of the wine? Or, though this seems unlikely, does this represent an intentional partial malolactic fermentation?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I have not only been to their vineyard and tasting room, but I am a member of their Enoteca wine club. They have fantastic wines, especially their “V” estate Cab Sauv, as well as their Sangiovese. I have only had one of their whites, and it is delicious. I can tell you that based on what I pay per bottle with shipping to be part of the club, this woot is awesome! At the price, you are practically stealing it from them.

This looks fantastic and right up my alley with chards. Unfortunately I’m 100% tapped on on discretionary expenses. Hopefully this shows up in a woot-off down the line.

Woot, could you start throwing in bottles of Boonesfarm or critter wine every so often so we can have some financial respite?

Thaaaaaaaaaanks.

I want buttery chard so this is a pass for me.

Always going against the grain. :wink:

The end result largely depends on the type of yeast and bacteria used for this process, as we learned from the higher-end Lioco offering. We really enjoyed both of their Chardonnays, and they both underwent full malo in stainless. They had a great mouth-feel without that sickly buttery feeling and taste.

Either way, lets get some winery representation!

We heard the Lioco NoCo was not as desirable, and that was made similarly but with different yeast, bacteria, etc…

Thats what makes him special :slight_smile:

Not speaking for the winery here but . . . for the most part this type of phrase just means that 1/4 of the barrels/tanks was allowed to go through indigenous/inoculated MLF while the other 3/4 were chilled and had SO2 added in order to prevent ML bacteria from growing. This isn’t to say some level of ML couldn’t have occurred in those other tanks, but at white wine pH, its usually pretty easy to control with temp/sulfur.

Stylistically speaking (again just from my point of view) using partial ML is just a tool for controlling the characteristics in the final wine. Ie, you might not want to soften all the harsher malic acid into lactic acid if you want a crisper style of wine, or you might not want much the diacatyl/buttery aroma or other characters that come from certain ML strains (or are just metabolites of things already in your wine).