| |
  Chateau Souverain Chardonnay There are two distinctly different kinds of people you may find standing side by side at a tasting bar. One is the wine-buff who loves Chardonnay - any kind of Chardonnay, from the most flinty and austere to the barrel-fermented beauty that tastes of vanilla and butterscotch. He/she will try any and every Chardonnay that anyone is willing to pour into a glass, and he/she is ready to rhapsodize over all the nuances in the wine. The other taster is a person who really doesn't care much for Chardonnay from any Appellation, made in any style, and probably fondly remembers that one perfect Chardonnay tasted 20 years ago, when life and wines were more simple. That taster starts out with a sort of Missourian "show me" attitude, really hoping to find a Chardonnay that sings against the palate, but not really expecting it. It is possible that Ed Killian, winemaker for Chateau Souverain in Geyserville, a seeker himself, might have come up with a wine that will make both tasters happy. This wine is the 1998 Chateau Souverain Sonoma County Chardonnay. That appellation, "Sonoma County," tells those who bother to read labels that the grapes all grew in Sonoma County. In his winemaker notes, Ed points to three areas, pretty-well acknowledged to be prime Chardonnay growing areas, as his source: Alexander Valley, Russian River Valley and the Sangiacomo vineyard in Carneros. The grapes were picked at 23.38 Brix. They were fermented in oak barrels, underwent 100% malolactic fermentation, and sat on their lees, with judicious stirring every month for eight months. So what distinguishes this Chardonnay from any of the dozens - maybe hundreds, of others drawing fruit from the same regions and treated the same way in the winery? The answer is: Ed's approach. "Winemaking is something that becomes a part of your life," he says. "You don't come to the end of the day, close the door and go home and forget about it. You get into winemaking because of a passion and that passion continues. The challenge is to constantly make wines more flavorful and interesting. You wait for each vintage to see what Mother Nature will hand you, and you only get one shot each year at creating something special." Not only doesn't Ed "close the door at the end of the day and forget winemaking" even at the end of a work year, when he goes off on vacation, all the sensors are receptive to all sorts of influences. So, it was, that on a trip to the Burgundy wine region, calling at small chateaux and tasting wines in musty old cellars, he found he was sipping some of the best wines he had ever tasted. "The strongest impression was that these wines called for a vocabulary of their own. It wasn't 'rich, full-bodied, etc.' but Burgundian wines called forth such descriptors as earthy, nutty, mineral, with honeyed pear qualities that I had not encountered in many California wines. I was so taken by these wines that I wanted to try to achieve something similar, with a California twist." Ed's desire led to tasting grapes from various regions in a different way, selecting fruit to create a blend of tremendous diversity and complexity. "The cool Carneros region typically produces Chardonnay with citrus, green apple and pear characteristics," he says, and you can feel him approaching the blend he is seeking as he speaks. "Grapes from the Russian River Valley," he continues, "are distinguished by their tropical and spice notes, and Chardonnay from the warmer Alexander Valley is reminiscent of juicy ripe apples and citrus fruit." With his fruit sources and their flavor elements defined, Ed was then able, through the use of Chateau Souverain's new cluster delivery equipment and direct-to-barrel juice flow to emulate the hands-off Burgundian style he had admired. Thus was born the 1998 Chardonnay. Ed describes it as having "big, viscous, buttered toast flavor, harmonizing with honey, pear and apple notes, combining the Burgundian nuances I find so interesting, and the ripe Sonoma fruit flavors I like to showcase." It sounds as if it has just about everything any wine drinker could ask for, including a sensible bottle price of $14.00 for the 750ml bottle. Looking at the 1999 vintage, Ed is confident that this isn't a one-vintage wine, though he would be last person to say that any two vintages would produce exactly the same wine. So, for the "just pour it in the glass, I'm going to love it," drinker, and for the "hmmm, let me try that again. There's something in there that I'm liking," undecided character, Ed may have brought about a meeting of the minds with this Chardonnay. Remember, you can try before you buy by visiting the Chateau Souverain tasting room at 400 Souverain Road (at the Independence Lane exit), Geyserville, any day between the hours of 10:00 am and 5:00 pm.
| |
|
