Description
Steve Matthiasson just has a knack for crafting clean, cool wines with lots of personality at very reasonable price points given their excellent quality. This is a Chardonnay drinker's Chardonnay that will equally appeal to fans of lighter bodied and crisp whites. Steve and his wife leased the Linda Vista Vineyard on the back of their Napa Valley winery property, farming it sustainably and allowing them to capture just the right level of ripeness for their Chardonnay grapes. It's how he handled the grapes after picking them that sets this wine apart.
The wine was fermented and aged in neutral oak barrels and as Steve explains, “For complexity, completeness, and balance, we achieve a diversity of ripeness by using the traditional method of harvesting the fruit a number of different times during the ripening period. The earlier harvests contribute acidity and minerality, and the later harvests contribute flesh and richness. We gently whole cluster press all of the grapes, then ferment and age the wine sur lees in seasoned French oak barrels (no oak flavor), with only native yeast. No racking and minimal battonage (lees stirring) on only a few selected barrels. We allow two-fifths of the barrels to go through malolactic fermentation for complexity and balance.”
