2001 Teatown Cellars Napa Valley Chardonnay

This Chardonnay is our second vintage of single vineyard Chardonnay from Rust Ridge Vineyards located in Chiles Valley in eastern Napa. Although Chiles Valley is very warm during the day, the temperature drops significantly at night allowing for hang time on a par with mountain Chardonnay vineyards. Rust Ridge Vineyard was planted approximately 30+ years ago with at least two different Chardonnay clones. The yields from this already naturally low yielding vineyard were severely reduced by a spring frost. Harvest was in late September, the fruit was in excellent condition with excellent physiological maturity.

The fruit was crushed, settled and transferred to 100% new medium toast oak barrels. The wine was barrel fermented, stirred regularly and went through complete malo-lactic fermentation. The wine was left on its lees until bottling. The wine was bottled unfiltered and unfined in mid-July of 2002. 360 were cases produced.

The 2001 Chardonnay to a great degree mirrors the 2000 and shows the consistency of fruit produced by this vineyard. With the reduced yields due to the frost we used all new oak for two reasons. First, because we felt that due to the reduced yields the intensity of the fruit would be able to handle it, and secondly, I had already bought the barrels.

This wine is a light yellow in color. On the nose it is creamy and oaky with a touch of vanilla along with ripe, lush Chardonnay fruit, a touch tropical. In the mouth tightly focused ripe, intense Chardonnay fruit, again a touch tropical with balanced oak, malo-lactic, and acidity. The finish is long, and balanced with clean Chardonnay fruit and oak

A note about corks: We are still using “Grade ‘A’ Twin-Top Composite Corks” with very good results. A recent report of statistics, compiled at California wine competitions, found that this type of cork had the fewest taint problems when compared with all types of natural corks. We are glad to be able to reiterate that “corked” bottles are still a very rare event, and virtually non-existent.

If you would like to know about retailers in your area that carry Teatown Cellars Wines, need more information about us, or are interested in ordering our wine, please contact us.

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