Last night my film group discussed the movie “Bottle Shock” – and I was able to dig up a couple of bottles of the 2005 Montelena Chard to share. Another member brought the 2003 Chalone. These represented first and third place in the 1976 tasting depicted in the film.
In The Asylum here we have had a discussion about all of the inaccuracies in the movie, and I have read relevant parts of “The Judgment of Paris” by George Taber, so I was able to expound on all of this at the discussion last night. And I really didn’t expect the Montelena to be spectacular.
In fact my expectations were so low for the Montelena that I was a little surprised, it was better than what I had imagined. A little thin, but with a little minerality and some decent fruit. The Chalone was better, but not as good as I remember from a couple of decades back. I’m old enough to remember reading about the 1976 tasting when it happened, and I remember trying to find Stag’s Leap Cabernet in the shops (along with everyone else) after the results came out. I remember Chalone as a rather close match to a very good Chablis.
So my question is this. I realize that I probably should have brought a bottle of the Grgich Hills Chardonnay to the party last night. What I want advice on – if I wanted to put together a tasting of chardonnays which would stand a chance of convincing a French judge that they are better than Puligny-Montrachet, but which don’t cost more than, say $50, what would I buy? Ideally these would be from wineries that have been around for a while.
My recent wine drinking habits have given me a distorted view of chardonnay. When I go to Costco I pick up a dozen bottles of basic J. Lohr chard, and that’s my daily sipper. It is a very adequate and unpretentious wine and I enjoy it, but I wouldn’t serve it to company. For fancy dinners I go down and rummage through the Meursault and Puligny-Montrachets. What American wines will stand up to those?