2006 Rhys Chardonnay Alpine Vineyard- USA, California, San Francisco Bay, Santa Cruz Mountains (2/20/2011)
Pop-n-Pour. First Rhys Chardonnay. High Expectations.
On the nose the first thing I noticed was meyer lemon, vanilla marshmallow, and a green apple finish. On the palate, this wine has rather amazing viscosity without being “heavy”. Lemon again comes through, but is joined with stone and green apples. The mid-palate sees a rush of welcome acidity, leading into a protracted finish of pecan caramel.
I was surprised at how the flavors, were all playing towards the sweet side of the spectrum, and of course an hour later these dissipated. The pecan caramel flavor had become cooked pineapple with a salty/stoney aspect more dominant, and the finish was a salted caramel.
Really, quite an interesting wine, and while ready to drink now, I would have liked to try this again in 2-3 years, but this was my only bottle.
50+5+12+17+6 (90 pts.)
Howard, the winemaking process is pretty simple really. We whole cluster press the chard, let it settle for a couple of hours and then gravity it to barrel. Once in barrel, we let it ferment when it wants to, which means that it starts in the late fall, takes a break during the winter and then starts up again in the spring. Most of our chardonnays finish primary fermentation in either the late spring or early summer after vintage. That’s also when it sees sulfur for the first time. We normally leave it in barrel until December (roughly 14 months total bbl time) and then rack the night before bottling. As far as oak, the wine usually sees between 25-33% new french oak.