Wondering if this is Grgich Hills Milijenko’s Selection PS. The last vintage, 2019 was aged for 32 months, so wonder if this was pulled early and sold to downsize inventory.
Sounds like switchback, right up until the alcohol. 14.2 is very reasonable for PS.
Or….Palisades Canyon PS. Can’t be too many estate PS producers in Calistoga. Mailing list only, so hard to tell anything about the wine.
You asked - not sure the language specifically states ‘mailing list only’? If it was Palisades Canyon, I think they’d have alluded more to the famous winemaker. I think the biggest clue is that it isn’t made every year. Could it possibly be Montelena? I’ll keep digging…agree this one should be easy enough to narrow down.
Ive had a PS from frank family at their Calistoga vineyard and they also make champagne. Is that a hint possibly? It was very good.
I suppose this is a statement that anyone could come up when describing Calistoga, but I always find it interesting when a dN write up uses fairly identical language as a wineries website.
“This area experiences strong diurnal temperature swings, with very hot days and nights cooled by fog from the Russian River Valley that funnels through the Chalk Hill gap.”
So guess what wine this statement came from?
Sterling Vineyards Calistoga PS. However, nothing else matches up and I don’t think their PS grapes are estate.
I also thought Sterling…but non-estate fruit eliminated them from contention. Frank Family’s estate vineyards don’t include any holdings (that I could find) in Calistoga, so don’t think that works either. Envy has an estate Calistoga petite, but seems to produce it every year. Montelena certainly isn’t produced every year, but does seem a bit of a stretch.
[quote=“AlexanderS, post:12407, topic:285868”]
14.5% ABV Chardonnay
[/quote]b
I was intrigued until I saw that 14.5% ABV……
I passed
Disregard. I was trying to correct my previous post per your findings.
It looks to me as if Chateau Montelena really pushes their “estate” wines by labeling them as such. So it doesn’t appear that the 2022 PS was estate.
Found this as well. Looks like CM did plant some PS in their estate vineyard, but in 2023 (that tiny block on the left). That would make it impossible for the vines to produce fruit in the same year, right?
Vincent Arroyo makes a lot of Calistoga PS. Does it match anything from him?
Could be, while I can’t get the vineyard link on their website to work, the bottle does say “estate bottled.” But I would have to assume that they produce this wine every year, given the limited information on the website.
Yeah, Vincent Arroyo makes quite a bit of PS, including several single-vineyard bottlings, a “Winemaker’s Reserve”, and the “Estate Bottled” blend. All except the “Estate Bottles” have $60+ sticker prices.
If this is any of the Vincent Arroyo PSes and is up to their usual standard, I’d have no reservations recommending it at the $15 dN price – they’re solid, interesting wines that develop nicely in the bottle.
Does Vincent Arroyo fit:
"No detail is too small, no expense is spared, and much like the best Champagnes, it’s only released during the finest vintages. 2023 provided perfect conditions, "
just a guess
Is there a reason that we think these aren’t from the normal Eleveur source guess, Edouard Delaunay? He appears to offer a Santenots bottling