2009 Peay Estate Chardonnay

Opened a bottle to check in on and the wine was cloudy and appeared to be in the early statges of oxidation. Anyone else notice this with this vintage of Peay? This is a first type incident for me for any California white wine (had it too many times with white Burgs though). I drank it and it was a bit lifeless but has some lemon and oyster shell notes but not much drive or acid to focus things.

I experienced the same thing with this exact wine a few weeks ago.

I opened my first recently:

2009 Peay Vineyards Chardonnay Estate - USA, California, Sonoma County, Sonoma Coast (2/25/2014)
Quite a bit of color on opening, but it magically seems to lighten a bit with air. Shows the trademark toasty nose I’ve come to expect of a Peay Chardonnay, obviously something unique to barrel selection, on the palate it is flavorful, though slightly restrained in this vintage, with lovely stone fruit, hints of toast, very pleasant acidity and overall balance. A lovely California Chardonnay, elegant and refined. (92 pts.)

I will pull another soon and see what I get. Never had an off bottle from Peay until this one.

I had the same problems with two bottles over the past month.

Opened a second bottle tonight. Same result. This could be an issue.

You should send them back and make them peay!
Sorry, couldn’t resist.

I just had an 05 La Bruma syrah that was corked beyond any recognition.

Mr. Moore, if you didn’t already know, I’d be happy to replace your bottle of 05 La Bruma out of our library. I happened to have had this wine two weeks ago and it was in excellent condition, hard to say when it will peak (I keep guessing too early so I won’t even hazard a guess), enjoyed immensely by all present. As you can imagine, it is hard to know what percentage of our wines have bad corks, but so far as we can tell, it is nothing unusual. Of course, it is a tragedy when ANY of our wine is corked, and a hassle, as we keep telling our cork suppliers, but we have not found any superior closure for wines meant to age.

But why are you bringing up your corked 05 LB in an 09 Chard thread?

As for the 09 Estate Chardonnay, I need to visit with a glass to see if I can discern what it is Bob and John are talking about. Perhaps it is in a quiet phase? The 06 Chard was a similar vintage for us and it had a deceptively simple period, but is tasting great now and for the past three years.

Nick, maybe I shouldn’t have posted my concurrence with the OP since it could have just been a coincidence, and I haven’t had any problems with other your wines in the past, which I have been purchasing and enjoying mightily for a few years. That being said, I would not say it was in a “quiet phase.” While the flavors were muted, it was significantly darker in color than my last bottle of the same wine and definitely had that “brown apple” aroma. I posted only because I was struck that someone had the same experience with the same wine a few weeks later, and I think we’re all unfortunately on a bit of high-alert with respect to the premox issue.

Jay,

that does sound troubling. So you had the same wine before and it was different? So a closure problem? Sounded like the OP had two that were consistent (a wine problem)…Bob, was your experience consistent with Jay’s, as in darker, brown apple?

Nick, thanks for joining in. I was just asking the board as I never encountered this before. My wines were not like Jay’s. The first was very cloudy and dark golden, no brown. The second one last night was less cloudy but still a deeper tone in color. The first wine was a bit flabby. The second had a bit more acid. One thing about your wines is they are seldom lacking in acid. That is why I let the 09s sit awhile. As far as taste, they were not flawed but a bit simple with a lemon streak and some toast notes. I may try another here in a few days. The most recent note on this wine in Cellar Tracker also noted the cloudiness, but the TN was generally favorable. Are your wines fined and cold stabilized?

Yes, I have had the 2009 Chardonnay Estate twice before, and both bottles were fantastic. Nice yellow color, lots of zing, tart, fresh fruit flavors.

Below is a note from a bottle of this that I opened about a year ago…

“4/13/2013 - I WROTE: 95 points (Edit)
THis was really good. RaNae loved it. It might be the first red where she has had more of the bottle than me. There was a rich fruit in this bottle, passing moments of bright red fruit and then blackberry or visa versa. Nice hints of ground black pepper. Very well balanced wine. A Calif syrah at 13.8? Gotta love it. I am really happy to have one more.”

I am MarkA on CT. Look and you’ll see that 95 points is basically unheard of for me.

Bob,

I see the cloudiness bit a little more clearly now. You see, the Chardonnay is unfined and unfiltered, and stays on gross lees until right before bottling. Reading your note at first, i thought of the haziness that comes from making white wine this way, but it sounds like you really mean cloudy. We neither cold stabilize nor heat stabilize. The tartrates that theoretically could form say, from leaving the wine in the fridge for a month, would look like crystals. Did the wine heat up? Could be the wine is heat damaged. Protein haze can form (a protein-saccharide complex) when the wine is exposed to heat. That would explain the oxidative aspects, too. I would say (sadly) that it was just a bad closure, but the cloudiness aspect doesn’t conform to that.

and Bob, i don’t mean to say that heat damage is the definitive cause. At any rate, i’d be interested to replace your wines out of our library just to see what you get. Same goes for you Jay, and yours sounds like a bad closure (no haze?), will replace if you’d like.

Nick,

I was going to ask about heat damage. I would have to go back and see when these were shipped and to where (I was shipping to NJ for a time). If all my bottles have the same characteristic, then that would be a unique issue with my wines and not a systemic issue with the vintage. The corks were in there pretty good and came out with more force than other bottles.

Popped one tonight after seeing this thread.
It was everything we are used to experiencing in a Peay chard.
Lots of citrus and crispness.
We didn’t see any cloudiness.
The wine really started to sing after about an hour in the glass.
I would give this bottle a 92.

I just had an oxidized Jadot 1er Cru Puligny. I feel your irrelevant-to-this-thread pain.

But I have never had a bad Peay Chardonnay, either flawed wine or bottle. I was ready to disbelieve the hype when they were first poured for me, and had to laugh at myself for it after tasting.