3/99. Bought at the winery, June-98 for $25.
A very small quantity of Chardonnay was made last year by this boutique winery whose flagship wine is Cabernet.
COLOR: Very deep golden yellow. Quite unusual color. The wine looks and feel viscous and not particularly clear. Tiny bubbles attest to some sort of late fermentation. Malolactic in the bottle?
NOSE: Very assertive. Initially melon and peaches but in a relatively short time 'gained' some yeasty and woody aromas that were not all that pleasant.
TASTE: Very rich and concentrated. Mouthfilling to the extreme with highly extracted fruity and mineral flavors. So rich and 'obvious' in fact that it lacked any sort of finesse and elegance. Another oddity about this wine: although only two years old, it looks and taste like a mature old white...
LENGTH: Surprisingly short aftertaste for such a full-thrust wine.
TEXTURE & BALANCE: Extremely rich, but to the point of too-much-of-a-good-thing. A strange assortment of aromas and flavors, some good and some unpleasant. Very different from the usual watery boring Israeli white wines but I think this one just went overboard.
OVERALL: Very good for sure though the lack of subtleties and style [well, good style I mean] leaves much to be desired. Pity because this wine is still head and shoulders above the standard here. With a little more (less?) care in the winery it could have been a real star.
MARK: 16.5/20.aaaaaaaaBUY MORE? Maybe.

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Copyright 1996-2003.
Jacob "Yak" Shaya.