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Wine Details
Price:
$29.00 per bottle
Description:
In 2004, at the request of my mother who was not a red wine drinker, I crafted an experiment with one barrel of 100% Stillwater Creek Vineyard Chardonnay – Baer Winery’s first white wine ever. Working with a blend of two French Chardonnay clones, we pressed the whole grape clusters directly into a tank and then chilled the aromatic fresh juice overnight. The naturally clear juice was then moved to a custom 80-gallon stainless steel barrel for fermentation. Three months later, the completely dry Chardonnay was siphoned into new French oak. After resting and gaining complexity for 15 months, the wine was bottled. A unique creation, this wine was never racked, fined, or filtered. Created in a style that I personally prefer, this unique wine avoids the excessive fatty oak and butter often found in other American Chardonnays. This drink is a lean, mean, food-friendly machine.
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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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