Just curious. And this might be a thread open to criticism (as in “CA Chardonnay is not Burgundy and to compare the two is absurd”, etc.), but whatever.
I am wondering what if any experiences anyone has had where they have had a domestic chard that gave them close to a WB experience, with the acidity and minerality that I look for in a WB and basically don’t find elsewhere. I think I had one over twenty years ago that came close with the 1990 Marcassin Lorenzo, but no Marcassin since then has approached it…they got bigger and riper and thicker and that was that. I have not tried any of my Rhys chards yet as each offering I only bought a bottle or so just to see…I wasn’t ready to commit to larger numbers of relatively pricey CA chard based on my previous experiences…so I do need to crack a couple open and see.
I have had good CA chards, and I am sure that lots of people could chime in with numerous “great CA Chardonnays” of great depth that blew them away, but that is not what I am asking. I am wondering if any White Burgundy lovers out there have ever found any domestic chards that provided them with a WB-like experience…which to me means acidity and minerality and cut beyond simply the depth and concentration of fruit, but it is probably much more than that. Anyway, anyone?
The closest I’ve come was a 2005 Taylor Ridge from Boheme soon after release in 2007. At the time I wrote the winemaker:
Aloha Kurt,
Last Thursday my wife, Judy, and I very much enjoyed our first Boheme – the Taylor Ridge Chardonnay.
To me, an avowed Burgophile, it was like discovering a new, masculine commune hidden among the ladies of Chassagne, Puligny and Meursault.
The proof was that although I originally poured it into Riedel Extremum Chardonnay glasses, I soon tried it in the three different glasses we use for Burgundy village, premier cru and grand cru whites.
Lo and behold, it was best in the Riedel Sommelier Montrachet glass, which in my experience is unforgiving in revealing any defects.
I didn’t immediately write you about how impressed we were, because Judy had requested a domestic Chardonnay for her birthday weekend,
so I waited until we’d had our first Aubert, the 2005 Lauren, Saturday evening.
No contest: the Aubert was perhaps the 4th-best New World chardonnay I’ve had, while your’s is #1.
Two months later, however:
I drank the second Taylor Chardonnay.
It was also much more floral and fruity than the first bottle, but, Where did my white Burgundy go?
The minerally intensity and white flowers were gone – this time it was clearly Californian and therefore best in the Vinum Extreme Chardonnay glass and worst in the Sommelier Montrachet.
I regretfully concluded that the first bottle had been drunk before the wine had fully rested and opened up.
You will get quite a few responses, but having sampled many of the wines people like to put up as being Burg-like, the only ones that have consistently managed to achieve this (for me) are from Ceritas, Rhys, and Copain.
I can’t say I’ve ever come across any that truly achieve that, in my experience. Aside from what Alan mentioned I’ve read that Ramey Hyde clocks in very closely, though I’ve yet to try it for myself. I’m also interested in trying HdV, which some have said is very good. I suppose the bigger question to ask oneself is whether or not they should be judged against burgundy versus simply being viewed as their own wines.
Haven’t found a New World Chard that can achieve this consistently, but I have a 2011 Varner Bee Block that is a dead ringer for a WB. In fact, I brought it as a ringer to a WB off-line with a group of experienced WB drinkers surrounded by a nice collection of Puligny 1er, Corton, and Muersaults and no one guessed it.
Other than that, I basically consider WB and New World Chardonnay to be two different grapes and the wines, for me, serve very different purposes.
Well, since there are probably other places in France, and around the world, that could mimic Burgundy soil and climate, I can’t agree. Age-old discussion, of course. But in answering the OP “domestic chard that gave them close to a WB experience, with the acidity and minerality that I look for in a WB”, I think that’s most definitely possible. I’ve been involved in blind tastings with the wines I listed, along with respectable Burgundies, and even if someone with a lot of experience could pick one or the other as the Burg or Cali wine, it was not easy - and the California wines can absolutely deliver a “WB-like” experience. That’s why I buy them.
I, along with a few others on the Board (perhaps they can chime in as well), had a 1999 Arcadian Sleepy Hollow Chard about a month ago, and it was very close to a premier cru white burgundy. I think, if blinded in a flight of white burgs, it would put up a good fight, and would not be surprised if one couldn’t pick it out of the lineup. Not entirely surprised as winemaker Joe Davis seeks to make a wine that emulates his burgundy counterparts - both reds and whites.
It’s apples and oranges. But they are both fruit, as they say, so here I go:
Recently released Stony Hill often has moments a lot like tight young Chablis to me. And come to think of it, it often tastes like older Chablis to me with a decade of age on it.
I’ve tried it more than a few times and just never seen it work. Blind, open, whatever. Once the direct comparison happens the differences are pretty stark.
I like Stony Hill but I do not think it tastes like white burgundy. The wine I have had that most tastes like white burgundy was a Williams Seylum Chardonnay I had a number of years ago.
Let’s not forget what Harry Waugh said, when asked if he had ever confused Bordeaux and Burgundy…‘not since lunch…’ Anotyher of his famous saying is that ‘seeing the label is worth fifty years in the wine trade…’
Jean Francois of Francois Freres, one of the cooperages I represent here, loves to serve non-French wines to his French guests blind.
I have seen well-known French vignerons get completely confused by chardonnays made at Au Bon Climat and Robert Mondavi, to name a few.
Indeed Robert Joseph of Wine magazine in London once staged a series of blind tastings of the same chardonnays from around the world in four different venues…Sydney, London, New York and Burgundy…In France the Mondavi chardonnay placed first.
It is funny to me that we can have one thread of complaints about the poor ageing of white Burgundies and another in which the author complains he cannot find white Burgundy flavors in California chardonnay.
Cornwell cited the 2008 Ramey as showing very well in a field of famous white Burgundies. That s a wine selling for under $50 a bottle in a field of $80+…