Located 600 meters above sea level on the first ridge from the Ocean in Mendocino, is really a challenge to work with. It ripens very late – in this vintage Greg harvested the grapes November 4, at 20.8 Brix! It covers 12.15 hectares and is planted various clones of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, and in this wine there’s only the Clone 809, which is also called Chardonay Musqué. And you can tell, it adds floral and spicy notes to the wine. What Greg does, is to use a certain yeast strain to break down the linalool, the ester that give this floral note, and therefore it’s not as floral as it would have been. However, he let the juice cold soak with the skins for 32 hours during the press to extract that aroma as well as structure, and you’ll find some very fine and gentle tannins in the wine.
It’s a very interesting and elegant and highly aromatic wine with the expected floral notes as well as citrus and just a texture rather than flavor of the oak (it’s fermented and kept in neutral French oak). On the palate, its medium bodied, very fresh and lively with just a touch of tannins, and the same floral notes and fresh citrus flavors as on the nose, and the aftertaste lingers for a while. It’s good, very good, but it’s nothing for those who enjoy big, ripe, buttery and oaky American chardonnays.