White Wine Club

This Month, we present a Chardonnay that will complement your holiday table - Ch de Puligny Montrachet St. Aubin, premier cru, En Remilly. This is one of my favorite wines - from a great village in the Cote d'Or section of Burgundy.

For those with detailed vineyard maps, it's an open secret that Saint-Aubin's En Remilly vineyard is just up the hill from the famed Le Montrachet. This partly explains the top quality wines from producers like de Montille, Lamy, Amiot Guy, and Puligny-Montrachet. Until the 1980s it was difficult to plant vines in the vineyard due to the large stones and even boulders spread across the fields. Since then the arrival of mobile stone smashing machinery has facilitated vineyard plantings.

This bottling has a nice thread of minerality running through it, and is drinking very nicely. The wood is extremely subtle, with pretty white flower and pear suffused nose serving as the perfect introduction to round, pleasant and energetic flavors that possess moderate depth on the solidly long and notably dry finish. Reminiscent of a Chassagne Montrachet, at a fraction of the cost.

Welcome to the White Wine Club, where we'll explore great white wines from California and abroad. Our inaugural wine is one of my favorite California Chardonnays - 2007 Hirsch Vineyards Chardonnay, a chardonnay made by a unique method: Barrel Fermentation in Glass, Oak, and Stainless Barrels.

The barrel fermentation allows for extended lees contact, bringing richness to the wine, and the glass and stainless vessels allowing the wine to retain a crisp acidity and bright fruit.

According to David Hirsch

In 2005 we made a minuscule amount of chardonnay in glass containers. The result was startling: a chardonnay that put acids and a mineral mouth feel forward on the palate, with the varietal notes toward the back. Then we decided to make our chardonnay by four methods of fermentation and aging: glass, oak, and stainless steel fermentation and aging; plus aging on oak some of the wine fermented in stainless. We reserved fourteen gallons of each process prior to blending for bottling. The reserved wines were bottled by hand and are available in six packs that contain two bottles of the composite blend plus one bottle of each of the four methods. We found that blending of the four methods deepened the imprint of the site on the final wine."

"In 1994 we prepared 2.5 acres for planting on a rocky, 40% slope above my house. I was enamored with Barolo and had the crazy idea to put in nebbiolo. One night I met Burt Williams and Ed Selyem. On entering the restaurant, Burt yelled from the back, “Plant chardonnay! We will buy it.” The cuttings came from Joe Rochioli. Williams Selyem made the wine from 1997 to 2000; Kistler took the fruit through 2005. In 2006 we released the first estate chardonnay. It received 94 points and was named one of the best 100 wines of the year by Wine and Spirits magazine. In 2002 we planted an additional 1.4 acres of chard on a sandstone hill in field 12. It produced in 2005 a minuscule first crop of 200 pounds, which we fermented and aged in glass carboys. At first the wine was so undistinguished we almost flushed it. Then after some fourteen months it showed a wonderful acidity with intense minerality and great balance. This inspired us to experiment with various production methods.

The 2007 Hirsch Chardonnay is a product of four vinification processes: 1. Glass fermented and aged (138 gallons). 2. French oak fermented and aged (460 gallons). Total new oak comes to 15%. 3. Stainless steel fermented and aged (375 gallons). 4. Stainless steel fermented, aged in French oak (230 gallons)."

Farmstead Cheeses and Wines

White Wine Club November '09

October White Wine Club