2018 Chardonnay (Sold Out)

Tasting Notes

Seavey’s 2018 Chardonnay offers bright floral components and fresh clean fruit with notes of pear, apple, and tropical fruits. The wine finishes with a diffused minerality and gentle top notes of coconut, almond paste, and peach, enveloped in a luscious texture. This is our first vintage incorporating a concrete egg into the fermentation of our white wine. The egg creates a stable environment for gently drawing out the most subtle floral elements of the wine while its shape creates a constant intermixing of the lees with the wine which, in turn, adds depth, volume, and texture.

Ratings

Antonio Galloni, Vinous (Jan. 2020) – 94 pts
“The 2018 Chardonnay is super-expressive and nuanced. Lemon oil, mint, lemon peel, sage, and grilled herbs add savory character to this super-expressive, highly nuanced Chardonnay that finishes with pretty tropical notes that add a bit of flair. The 2018 is a wine of tremendous class and personality – I loved it. This is a gorgeous and super-distinctive wine.”

Vineyard Notes

Our Chardonnay blocks are nestled at the lowest elevation of our Estate, down by Conn Creek where they are surrounded on three sides by trees. The resulting environment encourages a crisp Chardonnay with a wide flavor profile that conveys the soil’s minerality and cool location. The 2018 growing season was marked by ideal weather. It started off warm, but July and August were mild, resulting in a long growing season with lots of hang-time allowing the grapes to progress to perfect ripeness. Our Chardonnay grapes were harvested in the first two weeks of September following wonderfully steady weather conditions.

Production Notes

The grapes were whole-cluster pressed and fermented in Burgundian barrels with 27% of the barrels undergoing malolactic fermentation. The wine continued to age in the same French barrels as well as our new concrete egg for a total of nine months (15% new) before bottling in June 2019.

100% ESTATE GROWN, PRODUCED & BOTTLED, NAPA VALLEY AVA