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Ponzi Vineyards - Avellana Chardonnay 2013
Tasting notes
Dulce de leche, cardamom, chamomile and ripe mango describe this aromatic nose. Hints of honey and yellow plum lead the bright mouth laced with white tea and peach.
Vineyard
The Chardonnay grapes for this single vineyard cuvee were grown at Ponzi’s LIVE Certified Sustainable Avellana Vineyard located in the Chehalem
Mountains AVA.
Vinification
The grapes for this wine were sorted and whole cluster pressed. The juice settled for 12 hours before going to barrel for fermentation. Using 100% neutral French oak, the cool temperature wild yeast fermentations continued well into the spring of 2014. Malolactic fermentation is 100%
completed with wild bacteria. Lees are stirred weekly for 6 months before a fall racking to even more neutral oak and bottling in the spring of 2015. This wine is in barrel for 18 months and in bottle for 6 months before release. Alcohol is 13.2% and pH is 3.60.
Vintage
The season started with a warm spring bringing an early bud break. From that point the growing season remained warm and dry leading us to believe we would have an early, uneventful harvest. All went as planned until the last week in September when the tail end of a Japanese typhoon dropped close to 6 inches of rain on the valley and completely saturated the vineyards. This is when it got interesting!
Having seen many wet vintages in Oregon we had some ideas on how to handle it; using helicopters to dry the vines, multiple picking passes, extensive sorting before destemming and very careful winemaking among other methods. October saved us with three long weeks of dry, breezy days allowing the fruit left on the vines to reach optimum flavor without any dilution from rain.
Having seen many wet vintages in Oregon we had some ideas on how to handle it; using helicopters to dry the vines, multiple picking passes, extensive sorting before destemming and very careful winemaking among other methods. October saved us with three long weeks of dry, breezy days allowing the fruit left on the vines to reach optimum flavor without any dilution from rain.
