chardonnay – Chardy Girl

La Crema Willamette Valley Blanc de Blancs 2015

What better way to enjoy Chardonnay than in a sparkling wine? La Crema’s 2015 Blanc de Blanc is made with 100% Chardonnay grapes grown in Oregon’s Willamette Valley.

Photo of La Crema Willamette Valley Blanc de Blanc 2015 bottle and flute — La Crema Willamette Valley Blanc de Blanc 2015

Oregon’s most well-known wine region, Willamette provides an ideal climate for sparkling wine. The growing season runs short but its days are long. Although Willamette is long famous for producing Pinot Noirs in this cool climate, many of its winemakers are now experimenting with sparkling wines.

The grapes hail from Gran Moraine Vineyards, one of La Crema’s sister wineries in Oregon. Gently bottled in 2016 and aged four years, the wine was produced by Méthode Traditionnelle. Our host describes it as “a borderline Brut” and I have to agree!

Crisp and vibrant, the nose exudes aromas of Tahitian lime, green pear, and vanilla ice cream. Its layers of granny smith apple, Meyer lemon and toasted gingerbread create a fresh combination of flavors. On the palate, the wine offers fine bubbles, bright acidity and a lingering finish.

If you can lay this Blanc de Blanc down that long, it will age for another 10 years, a mark of a very well structured-wine. Made available to wine club members early for a virtual wine tasting in September, the Blanc de Blanc will be released to the general public in early October.

Priced at $65.00 or $52.00 for wine club members. To purchase your own, visit the La Crema Wine Shop. And enjoy!

Reserve Chardonnay at Bogle Winery in the California Delta

I’m spending my birthday at Bogle Winery, enjoying a bottle of my favorite chardonnay – Bogle’s 2017 Reserve. Even though Bogle wines are distributed worldwide, this family run winery remains almost a hidden gem in the California Delta.

Shaded picnic tables on a wide grassy area, or the patio built under several tall trees, provide the ideal place to spend a lazy afternoon picnicking with your favorite people. Bogle’s chardonnay vineyards surround the tasting room and picnic grounds, making this an even better place for me, the Chardygirl, to hang out on this special day.

Despite the fact that I’ve tasted luscious, creamy, complex chardonnays from all over the world, the Bogle Reserve Chardonnay remains one of my favorite.

Bogle’s basic chardonnay is an everyday staple in our household. At $9.00 USD a bottle ($6.75 wine club discount), this chardonnay is also sold in several countries around the world.

The newer Phantom Chardonnay, a mid-point in flavor and price between the classic and the Reserve, $14.00 USD a bottle (or $10.50 with wine club discount) is a favorite with my friends and often served at our dinner parties.

But the Bogle Reserve Chardonnay, at $20.00 USD a bottle ($15.00 wine club discount), never disappoints. Notes of vanilla and toasty oak, flavors of ripe peaches and apricots, this wine finishes long and creamy. Best of all, you can buy it online at Fine Wine Delivery or Advintage in New Zealand. Or contact Bogle directly for options on having it delivered.

However, if you come to California, you must make a side trip to Sacramento. Just 20 minutes south of town, along the meandering Sacramento River, down Highway 160, just outside of Clarksburg, you’ll find Bogle Winery in the midst of the beautiful California Delta. Don’t blink or you’ll miss the turn off to Bogle. In keeping with their humble roots, the sign to the tasting room isn’t very big.

Pack a picnic lunch, enter the tasting room, buy a bottle of the Bogle Reserve Chardonnay, and find out for yourself just how luscious and complex this delightful wine is!

Scarborough 2013 Chardonnay

On a recent trip to Australia, I had the good fortune to visit the Hunter Valley for a long weekend of wine tasting. And what a gorgeous wine region!

Our first stop was the delightful Scarborough Winery where we were treated to a first class, sit down wine tasting at a linen covered table cloth in their dining room. I fell in love with this winery at first glance. Quiet. Elegant. This was an exceptional wine tasting experience.

Walked through our wine tasting by the super friendly, knowledgeable wine server, we sampled two current release chardonnays from their Classic Range and one from their Obsessive Range. But it was this Classic Yellow Label Scarborough 2013 from their museum collection that caught my attention and came home in my suitcase. (I know. The name “yellow label” conjures up images of another Australian wine that’s not so great. But this Scarborough Yellow Label chardonnay is not related, and it’s delicious!)

Aromas of pear, pineapple, peach and biscuit can be found in the nose. It’s medium bodied with a soft, round finish. Its flavor evokes mild stone fruit, perhaps partly from the peachy aroma. It’s a complex wine that keeps delivering more flavors. The color is golden yellow and the alcohol content is 13.5%. At six years old, this wine doesn’t suffer from its age – it was made to last. Back in 2016, the wine critics were recommending laying it down for a couple of years. Perhaps it’s because it was fermented and aged on lees in French oak for 12 months.

The best part of this wine? It was under $20. Can’t make it to “the Hunter?” Try wine-searcher.com or contact the winery directly. And come back again soon for more wine tasting in Australia…

Nazaaray Chardonnay 2017 from Australia’s Mornington Peninsula

Where have you been Chardy Girl? I’ve been to Australia, sampling chardonnays from one side of the country to the other. And I’m so excited to share more about my adventures!

But today, I want to tell you about a wine I tasted in the Mornington Peninsula just outside of Melbourne, Australia. This is one of the prettiest wine regions in Australia. This area has it all – beaches, sun, and wine tasting.

We rented a house from one of the local wineries in the town of Rosebud – Nazaaray – and they left a bottle of chardonnay for us as a welcome gift. How could they have known?

I employed my favorite wine tasting partner, Gary, and our daughter (who does not like chardonnay!) in sampling this delightful wine. Here are our thoughts:

Australia’s chardonnays are typically lighter in flavor and body than the California chardonnays I’m used to. This one is lightly toasted oak with a hint of vanilla in the nose. So far so good. The body is light, the wine is clean, and the color is pale straw yellow. It has a soft mouth feel with a smooth finish.

My fellow wine drinkers agreed, it’s elegant and clean. It was aged for over 10 months. Malolactic fermentation was part of the process.

The chardonnay sells for $45 Australian dollars or about $32 US dollars. The winery itself is gorgeous. If you find yourself in the Melbourne area, I highly recommend a visit to the Mornington Peninsula. You’ll love the wines, the beauty of this region, and the close proximity of the wineries to each other and to the beach towns of the Peninsula.

Nazaaray Chardonnay 2017 – Mornington Peninsula

Sonoma Plaza – A Great Way to Sample Sonoma County Wines – Part 4

Welcome back to the final blog in a series on small town Sonoma wine tasting. If you missed the prior articles, you can catch up here.

With 25 tasting rooms right in town, it was hard to choose and certainly not enough time to cover them all! But I have one more to share with you, located in the Ledson Hotel, on 1st Street East. The lobby of this historic hotel transforms into a comfortable lounge around a glowing fire (most welcome on the cold day we were there) and a long bar with chairs along the side wall. The tasting room offers samples of wines from Ledson Winery and Zina Hyde, with plenty of chardonnay options.

My favorite was the Ledson 2015 Russian River Chardonnay Reserve. A little pricey at $52.00, but this full bodied, creamy wine was delicious with subtle notes of toasted oak in the nose. The palate was layered with hints of crème brulee and butterscotch, typical characteristics of a Russian River chardonnay.

Two More Restaurants Worth Trying

In the first three blogs, I covered some excellent restaurants, especially La Salette and the famous Girl and The Fig. To add to the list, here are two more I would recommend:

Mary’s Pizza Shack at 8 West Spain street, a chain restaurant in Northern California, might not be your top choice in this town full of gourmet restaurants. But the fire on the patio drew us in on a cold, rainy day and we’re glad we stopped by. The menu is full of Italian and comfort food options, but the wedge salad was one of the best we’ve ever eaten. Drizzled with Italian and chunky blue cheese dressing, topped with tomatoes and bacon, focaccia bread on the side, this was the perfect size lunch. Gary ordered a bowl of their homemade minestrone soup with ham. Also, delicious!

Sonoma Grille and Bar, at 165 W. Napa Street, frequented by locals and tourists alike, was packed on this cold, rainy night in the middle of the week. Thinking that was a good sign, we stopped in there for dinner on our second night. Seafood and steak are both great options at this place. The fact that our server from the Lake Sonoma wine tasting room earlier that day was dining there that evening just confirmed our guess about the quality of the restaurant.

The vibe here is comfortable and wait staff super friendly. A handful of window seats make this place a little more fun – people watching while eating and dining. The restaurant includes a bar with ten seats that were fully occupied with locals enjoying a conversation, hand crafted cocktails, and appetizer plates of crispy calamari, cheeses and artichoke topped flatbread.

Places to Stay

For overnight stays, there are plenty of hotels on the Plaza or within nearby walking distance including MacArthur Place, a 64-room luxury hotel and spa just four blocks from the Plaza; the Best Western Sonoma Valley Inn, just one block from the Plaza; Sonoma Hotel, a 16-room historic boutique hotel on Sonoma Plaza; and Ledson Hotel, a luxury hotel with six guestrooms on Sonoma Plaza.

For more information on the town of Sonoma, wine tasting rooms, lodging, and restaurants, visit: SonomaPlaza.com.

Now park your car, wander through the historic trappings of small town Sonoma, and enjoy some of the best wines that Sonoma County has to offer.

Sonoma Plaza – A Great Way to Sample Sonoma County Wines – Part 3

Welcome back to my series about small-town Sonoma! Gary, my favorite wine tasting partner, and I spent three days exploring the town’s many wine tasting rooms in search of the perfect chardonnay. If you missed Part One or Two, you can get caught up here.

With 25 tasting rooms in easy walking distance of each other, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by choices. We visited several, but by far, my favorite was Bennett Valley Cellars. Located at 127 E. Napa Street, this small but comfortable tasting room features bar stools at a long white L-shaped bar, as well as three nearby tables available for seated tastings. We cozied up to the bar and quickly got to know Iliana from Italy, a lively and knowledgeable hospitality hostess.

The original founder, Emilio Zanin, also hails from Italy. Pictures on the walls show the 60-year generational history of this family winery established on the 40-acre Simpatico Ranch Vineyard in the Bennett Valley AVA. In Italian, “Simpatico” means “likable” and that is exactly how I found the 2015 Chardonnay, a Reserve Limited Release. As close to “perfect” as a chardonnay could be, it exudes rich, buttery characteristics with complimentary oak nuances and a silky yet crisp finish. Like Iliana says, “You’ll dream about it!”

California State Route Highway 12 traverses Northern California’s iconic Wine Country and cuts directly through the town of Sonoma, turning westward at the Sonoma Plaza. Naming a winery Highway 12 then strikes me as perfectly appropriate. With a tasting room located just off the southeast corner of the plaza, tucked into a retail store in a glass fronted building, Highway 12 offers a rare opportunity to sample complimentary tastings of premium wines. Reserve wines have a tasting fee, but it’s waived if you purchase.

With no chairs for seating, this is old fashioned, “belly up to the bar” wine tasting by the glass. But I found it worth standing around for when I tasted the three chardonnays they produce. I loved the Carneros Highway Chardonnay. At just $19.50 a bottle, this one came home with me!

For dinner we headed to The Girl and the Fig. Popular with locals and tourists, this locally owned restaurant is famous for its Cal-French gourmet food. Just across the street from the northwest corner of Sonoma Plaza, this restaurant has been serving fine, farm-to-table country French entrees for over 20 years. Proprietor, Sondra Bernstein, specializes in pairing “Rhone-alone” wines with her Sonoma-French cuisine. Wine flights are served in a quirky assortment of water, wine and compote glasses, and provide an opportunity to sample more wines from Sonoma County.

Gary said the pastis-scented mussels with garlic, leeks and herbs were best he’s ever tasted. This casual bistro comes equipped with a full cocktail bar, great dessert offerings and its very own newspaper, the “Fig Chronicles.”

In Part 4, and the last of this series, I’ll share one more wine tasting room to visit, and places to stay.

Be sure to sign up for my distribution list or follow me on Twitter (@chardygirl) and I’ll let you know when the next in the series is out! Until then, I’ll keep on the hunt for the “perfect” chardonnay.

Edna Valley 2015 Central Coast Chardonnay from California’s “Tuscany”

The Edna Valley American Viticultural Area—part of the San Luis Obispo County wine region—is often compared to Italy’s Tuscany Region in central Italy for its beauty. Spread across just 22,000 acres, nearly 30 wineries call this home.

With a continuous stream of coastal marine air, Edna Valley’s cool climate is perfect for producing chardonnay. Today, I am tasting the 2015 Central Coast Chardonnay from Edna Valley Vineyard, one of the area’s best-known vintners.

The bouquet displays aromas of soft peaches and quince. I taste butterscotch, so often found in California’s Central Coast chardonnays, and clove flavors. This is not a big wine. It’s light-bodied but elegant with bright acidity and a slight bite in the finish. The alcohol is 13% in volume.

The Edna Valley Vineyards 2015 Central Coast Chardonnay is not a high end wine like their Heritage Chardonnay, Reserve Chardonnay, or the Chamisal Chardonnay that I previously reviewed. But, it does make the perfect weeknight wine and at $10 a bottle, that’s good enough for me. I picked up a bottle at our local Raley’s grocery store, but you can also purchase it on Wine.com for the same price.

We paired this with a potato, pancetta flatbread with white sauce and found the combination to be delightful.

Langmeil 2014 Spring Fever – Barossa

Hello and Happy New Year! It’s been awhile since I posted a review, and for all my chardonnay loving friends, I apologize.

Things have been crazy in our world. We took a much-anticipated trip to Hawaii. We met our daughter, who lives in Australia, and spent Christmas in Maui. What a heavenly place to spend the holiday!

Plus, Gary, my favorite wine tasting partner, and I have been busy these past few months with more travel writing assignments. With several articles recently published and several more in the works, I’ve been distracted!

Langmeil 2014 Spring Fever Chardonnay from Barossa

But that’s no excuse for not doing my job, so today I am continuing with Australian chardonnays. I just love Australian wine. They are almost always bottled with screw caps which means you can get to the golden nectar that much faster!

Today, I am trying a chardonnay from Australia’s famous Barossa wine region. I usually think of this wine region for shiraz, but this bottle from Langmeil, caught my eye at our local grocery store.

The color is pale yellow, almost as light as champagne. When I first opened the bottle, the nose had a distinct aroma of oak, but that quickly dissipated, replaced by hints of honeysuckle and daphne.

Subtle melon and nectarine flavors, in combination with the soft, sweet perfume in the nose, made for a unique, but attractive chardonnay. I can’t say I’ve tasted one quite like it before, but I will definitely pick up another bottle again. This is an easy drinking chardonnay on its own, but it paired very nicely, too, with petite breakfast brie and fig jam.

This is a clean, well made, polished chardonnay, yet the body is mellow with a creamy finish. At 2014, it aged well, and at under $15, is very attractive.

I found it at our local Nugget Market, which carries a wide variety of imported as well as local wines, but you can buy it online at Marquis Wines or check Wine Searcher.

I don’t believe the winery sells the 2014 anymore, but it’s worth an inquiry directly with the winery, if you’re in Australia. Langmeilwinery.com.au

Cheers and here’s to many more months of happy wine tasting in 2018!

Alpha Omega Chardonnay Napa Valley 2013

I am so excited to try this wine and share it with you!

I first discovered it at a dinner party at the home of our next-door neighbors, frequent visitors to Napa Valley.

When I first tasted it, I immediately fell in love with this wine. Full of flavor and aroma, this wine has the characteristics I’m looking for in a chardonnay.

Being the good friends that our neighbors are, they gave us a bottle for Christmas. It’s hard for me to believe that I could leave it in the basement this long.

The color is straw yellow, bright and shiny. The nose displays pronounced aromas of lightly toasted vanilla, caramel and crème brulee. In fact, it’s so full of aroma I almost want to just smell this wine instead of drink it. But it’s too delicious not to drink!

The bouquet in the nose transitions into a mouthful of flavor, making this wine a pleasure to drink from start to finish. Sometimes a wine will have a delightful bouquet but the taste is not that terrific. Other times, a wine won’t have much of an aroma in the nose but the wine tastes delicious. The Alpha Omega has both.

This is a complex wine with layers of apple, pear in the flavor and butterscotch in the finish. It has a zippy or zesty finish due to the acidity.

It is 14.5 in alcohol and sells for around $50 at a variety of websites like wine.com, garyswine.com and others. It is no longer available at the winery as they are featuring their 2014 release, but plenty of online sites still have it available and it is holding up well.

Now to be honest, I don’t usually spend that kind of money on a chardonnay, but this one is a real treat. I’m glad we saved it and savored it.

Wine Tasting on a Rhone River Cruise with Petaluma Gap Winemakers

Cruising down the Rhone River on a wine themed river cruise was a great way to see the South of France and taste the wines of Provence. But we were even more fortunate to be sailing on a wine-themed cruise sponsored by the Petaluma Gap Winegrowers Alliance out of Sonoma County.

To promote its efforts to become their own designated appellation and raise a little money, the Alliance sponsored the cruise and sent along several cases of wine supplied by 12 wineries from within Petaluma Gap. The Alliance also sent four winemakers to represent the Gap, educate guests on the ship, conduct wine tasting sessions, and host winemaker dinners.

Lucky me, one of the first wine tastings featured four chardonnays from the region.

Pellet Estate 2015 Un-oaked, Sun Chase Vineyard

First on the tasting menu was a Pellet Estate 2015 chardonnay, unoaked from the Sun Chase Vineyard.

If you’ve been reading my blog for a while, you already know that I lean towards chardonnays that are barrel fermented. But, I’ve tasted a few unoaked versions lately that have opened my eyes and palate a bit. The beauty of the unoaked chardonnay is the flavor of the fruit comes through and this Pellet Estate is no exception. Aged 8 months in stainless steel, the wine was clear and shiny with lemon yellow hues. The nose offered hints of pear, apple and pineapple aromas. The high fruit flavors of citrus, apple and pineapple were layered with a hint of almond and melon. It finished with depth and complexity. Alcohol is 14.5%. The wine retails for $36 at the winery.

Agnitio 2013 Chardonnay Sun Chase Vineyard

Next, we tasted the Agnitio 2013 Chardonnay, also from the Sun Chase Vineyard. This turned out to be my favorite. I was very pleased and surprised when a bottle of this showed up in our cabin later, thanks to the generosity of the winemakers.

This is Agnitio’s first vintage of Sun Chase Chardonnay. 100% fermented in oak barrels, this wine displayed the luscious Sonoma County chardonnay flavors that I love. The nose expressed aromas of lemon, white flowers, and pear and vanilla. A wine more full bodied than the Pellet, the mouthfeel had depth and complexity. There was some minerality in the flavor, layered with pear, vanilla and a hint of butterscotch. Alcohol is 14.1% and the wine sells for $40 at the winery.

Pfendler Vineyards 2014 Chardonnay

Pfendler is a small production winery that only has three wines in its current release, producing just 400 cases of this chardonnay.

Aged 10 months in French oak, the Pfendler was a beautiful wine with aromas of honeysuckle, apple, spice and lemon crème. The mouthfeel was lush and the color bright golden straw. The wine was layered with flavors of lychee, pear and a touch of minerality. Alcohol is 14.1% and it retails for $8 at the winery.

Rodney Strong 2014 Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast

Rodney Strong makes several different chardonnays and is one of my favorite Sonoma County wineries.

Barrel fermented in new French oak, the wine had aromas of toasty vanilla, apple and pear. The mouthfeel was rich and creamy, with flavors of pear, pineapple and a touch of spice. This was my second favorite in the tasting. 14.0% in alcohol, the wine retails for $25 at the winery.