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Wine Details
Price:
$42.00 per bottle
Description:
I first visited Burgundy in the spring of 1980, and the highlight of the trip was a dinner in Meursault, at the home of the late Guy Roulot. I adored Guy’s wines and had long regarded him as one of Burgundy’s best vintners. We tasted a number of extraordinary wines at that meal, but the one that stood out was his 1964 Meursault ‘Perrières’, a Chardonnay as close to perfection as I could ever expect. We had just begun Neyers Vineyards and my hope was someday to produce a Chardonnay that stirred my blood the way this one did. The Perrières vineyard in Meursault rises to 250 meters or so in elevation, and faces southeast to form a natural amphitheater. It takes its name from the deposit of small pebbles in the soil there, a geological peculiarity found no where else in Meursault. These pebbles add a natural minerality to the wines, a characteristic we also find in our El Novillero Chardonnay. There’s a similar rocky deposit in the highest portion of the El Novillero vineyard, which is also 250 meters in elevation and faces southeast. If there’s a vineyard likely to produce wine similar to Perrières it’s this one. In the 2004 vintage we’ve come closer than ever before. A strong aroma of butterscotch and grilled bread combines with the naturally sweet fruit of ripe Chardonnay. It’s thick, rich, and flavorful, but each component is held in check by that fascinating minerality. That night in 1980 Guy made a comment about his Perrières, and his son, Jean Marc, translated it for me. Reading it from my notes twenty-five years later, I’m struck by its poetry. The pebbly soil of Perrières, he said, allowed him to create a wine with “…imperfections that become polished with age”.
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Varietal Definition
Chardonnay:
Chardonnay is by far the most widely planted grape crop in California and dominates California’s cooler, coastal, quality wine regions. The natural varietal ‘taste and smell’ of Chardonnay is surprisingly unfamiliar to many wine drinkers, as its true character is often guised with dominating winemaking signatures. Chardonnay’s rather subdued primary fruit characteristics lean toward the crisp fruitiness of apples, pears and lemon, but the variety’s full body is capable of supporting a host of complementary characteristics, such as oak, butter and vanilla. Regardless of what is the appropriate style for Chardonnay, the varietal continues to dominate vineyard plantings in every corner of the world. Close attention to clonal selection has made this broad geographic and climactic range of Chardonnay viable in thoughtful viticultural hands.
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