Good example of better Chardonnay?

I am not a big Cal Chard Fan in the first place. But theirs is better than most.

I drink expensive Reds and cheap whites. In fact, I drink the Louis Jadot White Burgs that I buy at Costco for the $10 range.

For Reds I spends $$$$$ and for Good Champagne I will spend $$$$$. But for a chard I spend $ or $$.

I pallet is not that educated on dry whites so I go cheap. Hopefully it will not need further develoment cause its cheaper this way.

I would agree that the wines that he made for Newton especially and Luna were fruit bombs but his own label made from his own fruit has evolved away (since

While I agree with most everything you've stated, I do think that there is a tangible difference in California Chardonnays dependant upon climate. There is a wide range of climates that support Chardonnay grapes in California and I would think that most tasters here would be able to tell the warm climate wines from the cool climate wines. Bi!!

Which raises the question of what is most important to judges at wine tasting events: how good the wine tastes or how well it expresses whatever it is supposed to express, i.e. varietal, terroir, etc.

None of these factors are mutually exclusive. Ideally the top wines would both taste good and be very expressive. But in a world where few if any wines are perfect (whatever that might mean), which factor(s) get the most weight?

Vino

I tried the Ramey recently. I can't say it's not a good bottle of wine, but it had a very strong flavor of botrytis that completely concealed the fruit. IMO botrytis has no place in Chardonnay. I'm a purist on that issue.

Tom S

Perhaps. Could you tell a Santa Barbara chardonnay from one made from fruit grown on Sonoma Coast or in the mountains? They are all cool climate and I doubt most people could tell the difference - or if they can tell the difference I doubt they can correctly name which region each wine came from.

You have a point on warm climate versus cool climate, but I am not sure that speaks terroir in itself. It's like tasting a pinot noir grown in Mexico City. You know it's bad and you know it's not from France, but you have no idea where it came from without a tip! Is that really terroir?

Dimitri

Agreed - Flowers Chard is delightful and much more Burgundian. I also enjoy the recent two vintages of Lazy Creek's Chard, also quite Burgundian in spirit.

Dana

Navarro's current 2002 Chardonnay Table Wine, under $10, is a blend of crisp Anderson Valley Chardonnay and fairly fat Santa Barbara Chardonnay. It's delicious, really, and can pass for either a slightly crisp warm-climate wine or a slightly-fat cool-climate wine. Neat stuff.

Dana

Sorry, but I don't subscribe to that theory. The strong differences from year to year in the fruit from a given location clearly disproves that notion. Clearly, _climate_ is the #1 influence on the quality of the fruit.

Cal chards usually don't *try* to express terroir and many

I don't know about that last bit, but I've found that it's nearly impossible to conceal terroir if it's there to begin with. Chardonnays from different regions within California all speak to me differently: Santa Barbara has loads of tropical fruit flavors; Monterey has an almost candy-like quality; Napa has a definite flavor of earth; Russian River is a bit like Napa and Santa Barbara combined, etc.

The point is that although the fruit tends to be strongly in the fore, terroir is there in evidence too. It's just a bit more subtle.

Tom S

That's tough. When I think of Burgandy, I think of Batard Montrachet. In California, I might look towards Talbott (Sleepy Hollow). The flavor profile isn't quite the same, but I do think of Batard Montrachet when I drink this. Additionally, I think (??) they're the only CA Chardonnay ever to get a 100 point rating from Wine Spectator, which they specifically equate with a Condrieu (1990 Talbott).

I taste 50+ wines a week and have for many, many years, so I think I could make a pretty good attempt at it however the same could be said about Burgundy. I don't think most people (this group for the most part excluded) could name the Burgundian appellation in side to side comparisons either but that doesn't change the fact that the wines are in fact different in their basic profiles. Bi!!

Perhaps it was an off bottle. I haven't had any botrytis issues. Which vineyard designation was it? Bi!!

Salut/Hi Tom S,

le/on Mon, 29 Dec 2003 20:30:25 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

Remind me to open a bottle of the Macon Domaine du Bon Gran Cuvée Botrytis by Thevenet, when you come to the afw week. Maybe I can persuade Michael to contribute one of the better Austrian Trock chardonnays to compare.

I find both fascinating and excellent.

Which isn't to say that I find botrytis the BEST expression of the grape.

RV, what exactly is your occupation that you taste 50+ wines per week? I thought you did not work in the wine trade?

Dark Helmet

I don't I'm a retired transportation logistics business owner. Wine has been my hobby for the past twenty years. I have a large cellar of about 5000 bottles and I have a lot of friends who are wine geeks. I also do a some work with restaurants and catering firms in helping them with their wine lists and I attend one or two industry tastings a week as a guest since I buy a lot of wine for personal consumption and recommend a lot of wine to my friends. A wink and a nod can get you a long way sometimes. FYI, for some reason only about half of your posts show up on my news reader ( it happens to Bill Spohn's and Sale's post too). I get garbled binary files instead that are unreadable.) Bi!!

RV, does "transportation logistics business owner" have anything to do with the distribution of wine? If so, you must understand that a wink and a nod would probably get you a lot more than it would the rest of us in wine-stone-age Ohio.

Also, not sure why my posts would be garbled, unless I've tasted a few too many myself!

Dark Helmet

FYI, for some reason only about

I'm assuming you mean me (no Sale posts here I know about). Are you using AOL newsreader? Sometimes I don't get my own or Bill's posts because they're too long (I can read by clicking on "list unfiltered"). But never got one garbled. Newsreaders can be funny beasts. My most perplexing issue on this newsgroup is Mark S. from upstate NY. His (valuable) posts show up on my newsreader, but not if I use the offline newsreader. I know that some folks have trouble with diacritical marks, too. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

IIRC, it was the 2001 Russian River Valley Chardonnay. I purchased it recently at a local wine shop on the clerk's *stellar* recommendation. It was just under $40. I expected much more classic California style. BTW, this was not a "corked" or "off" bottle. I know botrytis when it hits me in the face!

Tom S

No, I do not now nor have I ever had any involvement in any kind of wine business in any capacity. I do a little consulting with a couple of restaurants when they are tasting wines to add to their wine lists. My compensation for that service is that I get a nice lunch and I get to taste a lot of $10-$20 wines. It's my news reader not your typing that garbles the posts. Bi!!