TN Babcock Grand Cuvee Chardonnay 1990

How interesting to see these notes from you. With all the aged TBAs and First Growths that you post about, I hadn't realized that you also sampled more humble offerings from CA. I haven't had any Babcock Chardonnays that I know of, but if indeed they are on a par with ABC's, I will have to try one. Of course, there's always the question of whether the wine they make today is at all comparable to what they were making in 1990.

Thanks for the notes, Mark Lipton

I do not know anything about recent Babcock Chardonnay, so don't blame me if you do not like it! I have had other Chardonnay from Babcock made in the 90s. The Grand Cuvee was a reserve wine, and I found that both ABC and Babcock reserves often were much better and lasted much longer than their regular wines. In the 90s both ABC and Babcock were quite small, and likely had to put out some not-too-special regular wine to make money, unlike some movie stars and other rich people who started making wine in the 70s and 80s. I would say, that in the early 90s, ABC tended to be a bit fuller and more extracted than Babcock for both regular and reserve bottle comparisons. ABC likely used more oak than Babcock, but it did not overpower the wine with age. In the early 90s, I obtained some of my ABC and Babcock wines from the Pacific Wine Company in San Francisco and had it shipped to me. This company has been gone for many years. The Brown Derby in Missouri often had ABC and Babcock wines in the early 90s. Both wines could be rather difficult to find then because of the small production and lack of good distribution to much of the country. Some of the ABC wines gained somewhat of a cult status, which made them even more difficult to find.