Godello with Zoltan Szabo, Tony Aspler, Mike Di Caro, Ben Macphee-Sigurdson and Nicholas Pearce,
Photo (c) Steven Elphick & Associates
In eleven days, as the Chardonnay grows, the coolest wine conference will return to the Niagara region on Friday, July 17th. The School of Cool will call to assembly with the annual intendment to recalibrate a global palate at Brock University’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI).
Related – The meaning of Chardonnay: You’ve gotta be cool to be kind
In anticipation of my third consecutive trip to taste and report on upwards of 100 variants in the name of ichneutic varietal centralism, 11 tasting notes are here laid out in preparation of the hunt. Too much Chardonnay you say? Bah. Allow me to paraphrase the lads from London.
“Wanna tell you about the Chardonnay I love, my she looks so fine. She’s the only Chardonnay that I been dreamin’ of, maybe someday she will be all mine.” Yes I do love Chardonnay, especially cool climate Chardonnay. Chardonnay with acidity, backbone, texture and aromatics. Chardonnay made by monks who know.
Related – ‘I4C’ a future filled with Chardonnay
Here is a list of events happening at and links to buying tickets for the Cool Chardonnay Conference:
July 17: The School of Cool https://kiosk.eztix.co/kiosk-optimised-event/46859/49090
July 17: Barrels & Bonfires https://kiosk.eztix.co/kiosk-optimised-event/46859/49091
July 18: Cool Chardonnay World Tour Tasting & Dinner https://kiosk.eztix.co/kiosk-optimised-event/46859/49092
July 19: The Moveable Feast: Brunch on the Bench https://kiosk.eztix.co/kiosk-optimised-event/46859/49093
Cool to be Cool. Godello and friends at Barrels & Bonfires, 13th Street Winery, Cool Chardonnay 2014 From #VINTAGES Magazine Photo © Stephen Elphick and Associates
The Cool Chardonnay concierge notes that “It’s Cool to the Cool – it says so in the LCBO #VINTAGES circular for July 11. Six pages of Cool Chardonnay and i4C info, including a one-on-one with keynote speaker Matt Kramer, 10 great i4C Chardonnays” and a photo of Godello and friends at last year’s Barrels and Bonfres event at 13th Street winery.
Related – 50 cool Chardonnay in 5,000 words or more
These picks are from the VINTAGES July 11th release, as well as some Cool Chardonnay samples that arrived floating on a cool climate carpet into the WineAlign office. These combined 11 whites are cumulatively capable of Chardonnay foreplay. On the weekend of July 17-19 hundreds, perhaps even thousands will descend in a beeline down to the Peninsula at the valley foot and foothills of the Escarpment to gather, to do nothing but celebrate the intricacies and the base pleasure of the most planted white grape variety. For a full schedule of and essential sundry information on i4C15, click here. See you in Niagara.
From left to right: Robert Oatley Signature Series Chardonnay 2013, Westcott Vineyards Lillias Unoaked Chardonnay 2013, Flat Rock The Rusty Shed Chardonnay 2012, Bachelder Oregon Chardonnay 2012 and Pearl Morissette Cuvée Dix Neuvieme Chardonnay 2012
From the VINTAGES July 11th Release
Robert Oatley Signature Series Chardonnay 2013, Margaret River, New South Wales, Western Australia (350900, $18.95, WineAlign)
Flinty and cool, gathering up Margaret River righteous Chardonnay fruit and weathering an encouraging, blanketing and receptive barrel storm. Comes out a child of good climate, with green apple and gemstone crispness and simple, matching acidity. Not overly constructed to kneel down in the name of holy complexity but effective like a hand knit shawl in lieu of prayer. At $19 the River might have given a “girl with the parking lot eyes,” a Chardonnay in which “Margaret is the fragment of a name.” At $19 this over-achieves and makes a strong case for all that is produced from this cool regional place. Signature signed emphatically and with cool, downcast beauty, like Neko, if she were Chardonnay. Drink 2015-2020. Tasted June 2015 @RobertOatleyAUS @EpicW_S @WestAustralia @MargaretRiverWi
Westcott Vineyards Lillias Unoaked Chardonnay 2013, VQA Vinemount Ridge, Ontario (Winery, $20.00, WineAlign)
Winemaker Arthur Harder makes no bones, excuses or sets the goals too lofty in this second Lillia’s unplugged. “What you get is what you get,” from seven year-old estate, pristine fruit in 2013. Infrequent but texture stirring lees has mottled the nose with glycerin and avoirdupois while bottling early in the spring in advance of warm days has locked in freshness. Expression arrives by way of herbiage and lime. Continues where ’12 left off, further akin of Chablis. Drink 2015-2017. Tasted June 2015 @WestcottWines
Flat Rock The Rusty Shed Chardonnay 2012, VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (1552, $24.95, WineAlign)
Accumulated cognizance exudes from the laid back Shed, here as relaxed and user-friendly as it has ever been. If the texture is not vintage induced and made of low yield than I’ll sell my LP’s and switch outright to Songza and Neil’s PonoMusic. The herbs are basil and chervil sweet, the verbena and lemon balm redolent, the flavours beaming, bolstered by preserved lemon and candied ginger. The stuffing must be questioned, but not the elegance. This Chardonnay is porous, blessed, void of rust and of an interior with plenty of space in the shed. Let it fill.
From my earlier note of February 2014:
There will be 660 cases of this barrel cherry-picked, now iconic Bench Chardonnay. The warm vintage called for a combo-malo approach, part batch all in, part arrested development. Gravity influenced top down blending also work to seek a svelte elegance and this ’12 really straddles the humid line. Thinks to be ribald but remains chaste, only allowing a kiss from the barrel and a caress from the rocks beneath the soil. Accept immediate but know that deferred gratification is the hallmark of this bottling.
Last tasted March 2015 @Winemakersboots @UnfilteredEd @brightlighter1
Bachelder Oregon Chardonnay 2012, Willamette Valley, Oregon (273334, $29.95, WineAlign)
When you taste an Oregon Chardonnay made by Thomas Bachelder you must first picture yourself somewhere. At lunch, with Lucy, on a promontory overlooking the sea, gazing up at a cloudless sky, in a dream. The warmth and kaleidoscopic layering of the 2012 might put you “in a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.” The sweet scents are like blossoms, with the air thick and palpably perceived in texture by way of an omnipresent Oregon salinity. This is the effect of the Bachelder diamond tannin, as pronounced and geologically-driven as any set of Chardonnays from out of the Willamette Valley. The personality of this villages is bright. The Single-Vineyard Johnson iridescent. This is a fine vintage for Oregon, more about ripe but early fruit and even more about soil. The algebraic cauldron that is the barrel simplifies the equation in ’12, to allow for a smooth climb out of a clean, pristine and rocky earth. Drink 2016-2022. Tasted May 2014 @Bachelder_wines
Pearl Morissette Chardonnay Cuvée Dix Neuvieme 2012, VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Niagara Peninsula, Ontario (303602, $35.20, WineAlign)
The style has changed for this Chardonnay though it is now more in line with other Pearl Morissette varietal wines. The oxidative, natural bent has increased with anti-furor, succour and sublimity of a sordid sort. It remains to be seen what will happen because 10 years will be needed to fully denote the PM evolution, but what remains from the larder is true blue lemon that will turn, curdle and hold honey tight in five to six years time. Could be earlier considering the vintage. The flint and natural yeast are big on the nose while the palate is softer than most years. More like ’10, nothing like ’09 and yet full bodied to the maximum density it can be. So much flavour and yet at present the acidity plays anything but a vibrant tune. Story to unfold. Drink 2017-2022. Tasted June 2015 @PearlMorissette
From left to right: Bachelder La Grande Châtelaine Côte De Beaune 2011, Hamilton Russell Chardonnay 2013, Saintsbury Chardonnay 2012, Westcott Vineyards Estate Chardonnay 2013, Lailey Barrel Select Chardonnay 2013 and Le Clos Jordanne Claystone Terrace Chardonnay 2012
Bachelder La Grande Châtelaine Côte De Beaune 2011, Ac Burgundy, France (332536, $37.95, WineAlign)
The last of the Beaune mohicans to grace the Ontario market is the least understood, the quiet type, the cool underground dweller. This has weight and dug presence. Quite an underground salinity. Chisels into rock and friable earth, burrows into wood and still has not emerged. A floral sense of confection caused by gelid solids popped from Chardonnay tannin, like marigold petals frozen in dry ice, is a sniff to behold. La Grande Châtelaine is a precise and slightly bitter Beaune with life yet lived. With this level of Beaune complexity Thomas and Mary have smartly priced La GC a mere cut above the basic Bourgogne, Niagara and Oregon bottles yet coyly beneath the single-vineyard and lieu-dit offers in the Bachelder diaspora. Drink 2016-2020. Tasted June 2015 @Bachelder_wines @LiffordON
Hamilton Russell Chardonnay 2013, Wo Hemel En Aarde Valley, Walker Bay, South Africa (931006, $37.95, WineAlign)
Perpetuates the typically, stunningly effective flinty, deeply aggressive and layered Hamilton Russell style, here as warm and unctuous as its ever been. The candied flower and acacia aromas are early dusk intoxicating, the flavours of lime, honey and hard limestone candies reminders of life flashing before one’s eyes. The winemaking is so desperately clean, the diamond precision cut with perfect sight and the length driven by acidity and pure, essential grape tannin. Yet another chapter on the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley Grand Cru site is written, with prodigy and legacy authored work by vigneron Anthony Hamilton Russell. Drink 2017-2025. Tasted June 2015 @OliveHR @WOSA_ZA @WOSACanada @TrialtoON
Saintsbury Chardonnay 2012, Unfiltered, Carneros, California (359281, $39.95, WineAlign)
A dream from Carneros. Soft, buttery, creamy, demurred and slightly toasty, full on flavour nougat goodness of nuts and creamy tropical fruit. The pre-positioned, sequestered minimal age has come to this; texture, composition and length ready to please and willing to accompany an open-minded variety of summer fare. Take this west coast, well-structured Chardonnay to the east coast and seek out a Digby scallop, a Malpeque Bay oyster or a fleet of lobster along any maritime crag. Come to think of it, stop at all points in between and drink it alongside whatever comes to the table. Anything. Drink 2015-2020. Tasted June 2015 @saintsbury @TandemSelection @CarnerosWine
Tasted at WineAlign
Westcott Vineyards Estate Chardonnay 2013, VQA Vinemount Ridge, Ontario (Winery, $26.00, WineAlign)
The barrel fermented and aged Estate Chardonnay spent 12 months in two-thirds new and one-third second fill wood. Lees stirring is slightly increased as compared to the unplugged. Again, it’s about aromatic intensity leading the way to palate density. By the sounds of Westcott’s comments “we’re pleased with its remarkable irony — dry and sturdy, yet creamy and rather curvy,” you might think the team was stirring with impunity. Not so. The Estate Chard does the dance of mild spice and butter on toast to reach a texture that would appease savages. Unavoidable and typical low yields from the Vinemount Ridge picked at the right moment and handled with caring tabula rasa are the spirit in this wine. Delightful and charming. Drink 2015-2020. Tasted June 2015
Lailey Barrel Select Chardonnay 2013, VQA Niagara River, Ontario (Winery, $26.00, WineAlign)
Le Clos Jordanne Claystone Terrace Chardonnay 2012, VQA Twenty Mile Bench, Ontario (Agent, $40.00, WineAlign)
In 2012 there is a weight in the aromatics that belies any recent recollections of the Claystone style. The vintage warmth is a major player here, a cement and a glue that adheres to the adage of vintage being the driver for making wine. Winemaker Sébastien Jacquey listens to the wind, putting aromatics, texture and structure at the fore while allowing the sun to say its peace. This glides dutifully and seamlessly to the palate which is just as fleshy as the nose. The honey continues from ’11, as does the candied flower. Wood remains as unobtrusive as before, allowing a fruit to mineral continuum to find harmony. Though acidity lays lower, there is plenty of push to see this evolve for up to five or more years. Drink 2016-2021. Tasted July 2015 @LeClosJordanne @CBrandsCareers
Good to go!
Godello 