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  • Country ranking ?

    415
  • Producer ranking ?

    16
  • Decanting time

    -
  • When to drink

    2020-2035

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The Story

All of our ten vineyard designate Chardonnays are marked first and foremost by regional characteristics. Beyond that lies the personality of each of the vineyards from which they hail. All of the sites are planted to the same clone, a California heritage selection that we have been using for close to thirty years. Each wine is produced in the same fashion, with the focus being on the traditional techniques that elicit the earth driven, complex noble sulfides and resulting minerality inherent in the fruit from each site.

Each of our Chardonnay vineyards exhibits characters unique to the site, and hence unique to the wines bottled as vineyard designates. The bottling of wines of site is not a process we take lightly, as it is the main focus of our efforts.  We often take years to assess the quality and individual personality of a site prior to deciding to bottle it on its own. We have been working with many of these sites for well over twenty five years.

Produced solely from one specific block at the Kistler Vineyard, the only section of the vineyard that has a broken shale interwoven with the red volcanic ash. Since its planting in 1989, the block stood out in our minds, and clearly called for a separate bottling. Produces one of our most complete and complex chardonnays, and nears perfection on an annual basis.

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Vintage 2007

A vintage of contrasts

The 2007 vintage contrasted with previous vintages and with early predictions—yet grape growers brilliantly adapted to changing conditions. The year began dry with a warmer-than-normal winter that continued into spring, resulting in earlier budding, bloom and set. A mild-to-cool summer finished with a Labor Day heat spike that added the boost of sugar development that fruit needed to complement the excellent acid structure developed in the white varieties.

Harvest started in early to mid-August. Unseasonably cool weather and nearly an inch of rain in the second week of October did not affect the crops as Indian Summer returned with warm, clear days and vineyard crews sprang into action to finish harvest for a vintage of exceptional quality.

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

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Written Notes

2007 Cuvée Cathleen / 92-94 p This is the white special cuvée of Kistler (there are few top selections of Pinot Noir) and the source of the grapes varies depending on the vintage. Normally, a majority of the wines comes from either Vine Hill Vineyard or Kistler Vineyard, but since this is a cuvée of the best barrels in the cellar, there will always be a blend of vineyards. In this vintage, most or even all grapes comes from Kistler Vineyard, and as always it is the most concentrated wine. It’s not, a huge wine as so many “reserve” selections can be – the house style and finesse is still evident. However, there are more oak flavors here, both some spiciness and a sweetish note of vanilla, but thanks to the acidity the overall balance is just fine. One of the tasters made a very interesting remark, that this wine shows a little bit of everything – both the depths, the higher aromatics, the intensity, the lightness, the mineral notes and the acidity.
  • 93p
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Information

Origin

California, California

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