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  • Country ranking ?

    382
  • Producer ranking ?

    10
  • Decanting time

    1h30min
  • When to drink

    now to 2030
  • Food Pairing

    Roasted Sweet Potato and Cauliflower Soup

The Tb points given to this wine are the world’s most valid and most up-to-date evaluation of the quality of the wine. Tastingbook points are formed by the Tastingbook algorithm which takes into account the wine ratings of the world's best-known professional wine critics, wine ratings by thousands of tastingbook’s professionals and users, the generally recognised vintage quality and reputation of the vineyard and winery. Wine needs at least five professional ratings to get the Tb score. Tastingbook.com is the world's largest wine information service which is an unbiased, non-commercial and free for everyone.

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Parker 95 points:Not surprisingly, the 2008 Chardonnay Kistler Vineyard Cuvee Cathleen possesses attractive notes of tropical fruits, brioche, hazelnuts, honeysuckle and that unbuttered popcorn and steely minerality found in many of its siblings. Full-bodied with layers of fruit as well as a terrific finish, this is a young, backward but extremely promising effort. 


Not only have the 2008s lived up to or exceeded their potential from last year’s barrel tastings, the 2009s appear to be fabulous as well. Of course, 2008 was a much more challenging vintage and 2009 was a cool year, much like 2005, with slightly lower alcohols and higher yields than the short crop of 2008. All of the 2009 Chardonnays finished with around 14+% alcohol levels and had more minerality than usual. Kistler’s bottled 2008s were all concentrated. The 2008 Chardonnays have the potential to last even longer than the 2009s given the fact that they are even more concentrated than those wines.

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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 2008

The year 2008 reminded Napa Valley producers of the climate conditions their European colleagues often battle. The wild weather put the vineyards to the test and required more measures than usual to ensure an optimal harvest. Due to the exceptional weather conditions, the terroir played a significant role in shaping the character of the resulting wines. Some of the influencing factors were soil quality, vineyard-specific weather patterns, the age of vines and the farming methods used

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After the extensive 2008 Napa Cabernet tasting, there were no great qualitative differences, however, as the wines at the tasting all represented some of the best that these top producers have to offer. Although the scores ranged between 86 and 96 points, the differences will even out through longer ageing, as the wines will reach their optimum drinkability within 10–15 years. It was wonderful to note that a great deal of the wines were characterised by a seductively succulent fruitiness, which made many of them enjoyable already – more than half of the wines have scored 90 or more points, despite their young age. Whereas the great 2007 vintage contains very refined and long-lived wines, the 2008 wines charmed tasters with their open and generous style, even though their best days are still far in the future.

 

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Latest Pro-tasting notes

<10 tasting notes

Tasting note

flavors

Vanilla, Mineral, New-oak, Nutty, Buttery and Citrus

nose

Intense

taste

High in Acidity, High alcohol content, Perfectly balanced, Concentrated, Full-bodied, Focused, Ripe and Elegant

Verdict

Transparent and Intelligent

Written Notes

Kistler Vineyard Chardonnay ”Cuvée Cathleen” 2008 Big, almost monstrous, very intense nose that’s brimming with buttery corn, oak spice, vanilla, roasted oak. All balanced by a very pure tropical fruit character with fresh citrusy notes and white flower. Killer nose! Full bodied and very concentrated but superbly balanced with vibrant, ripe, fresh tropical fruit, citrus and stone fruits all drenched in melted butter and topped with vanilla and roasted nuts. This is very big but has such a grip and vibrancy it’s all in balance and finishes superbly with fresh acidity, minerals and hints of white flower. Hats of to this amazing wine! 95p. Drink 2014-2020
  • 95p
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Information

Origin

California, California

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