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750ml
Bottle:
$40.95
$46.80
The 2017 Chardonnay Sangiacomo Vineyards opens with aromas of lemon meringue, popcorn, banana chip and stone fruits...
750ml
Bottle:
$39.94
$42.48
12 bottles:
$34.28
Made from Chardonnay grapes grown only 10 miles from the Pacific Ocean in the famous Goldridge soils of the Russian...
750ml
Bottle:
$38.94
$39.60
12 bottles:
$38.16
The 2017 Chardonnay Estate opens with notes of toast, cream, lemon pith and hay over a core of Red Delicious apple...
750ml
Bottle:
$20.40
12 bottles:
$19.99
Aromas of honeysuckle mingle with pink grapefruit and zesty key lime on the nose. On the palate, bright notes of...
750ml - Case of 12
Bottle:
$73.94
A new wine in this range, the 2017 Petite Sirah is a total knockout. Rich, ample and explosive, with terrific...
750ml
Bottle:
$40.60
$46.40
This is very subtle and complete with cooked lemons and apples and a complement of straw and gunpowder. Full-bodied,...
750ml
Bottle:
$89.93
12 bottles:
$88.13
The 2017 Chardonnay Bearwallow Vineyard, from a site in the Anderson Valley, has an incredibly Burgundian bouquet of...
750ml
Bottle:
$99.94
6 bottles:
$97.94
The 2017 Chardonnay Buena Tierra Vineyard conjures up provocative notions of buttered popcorn, crème brûlée and...
Pre-Arrival
Calera Chardonnay Mt. Harlan 2017
750ml - Case of 6
Bottle:
$51.94
Hailing from Josh Jensen's iconic vineyard at 2,200 feet above the Salinas Valley, this is an epic Chardonnay, loaded...
Pre-Arrival
DuMOL Chardonnay Highland Divide 2017
750ml - Case of 6
Bottle:
$84.14
The 2017 Chardonnay Highland Divide was barrel fermented and aged 12 months on the lees in 33% new oak. It's toasty...
Pre-Arrival
DuMOL Chardonnay Hyde Vineyard 2017
750ml - Case of 6
Bottle:
$85.00
The 2017 Chardonnay Hyde Vineyard is a super-classic wine from this well-known site in Carneros. Apricot, candied...
750ml - Case of 6
Bottle:
$138.68
93-95 The 2012 Chardonnay Stone Cote Vineyard (a block within the Durell Vineyard planted on gravelly riverbed soils)...
Pre-Arrival
Hyde De Villaine Chardonnay De La Guerra 2017
750ml - Case of 12
Bottle:
$126.90
The 2017 Chardonnay Le Debut Hyde Vineyard is a very pretty, open-knit wine loaded with class and personality. Light...
Pre-Arrival
Mount Eden Vineyards Chardonnay Estate 2017
750ml - Case of 12
Bottle:
$76.50
The 2017 Chardonnay Estate is beautifully expressed this vintage, scented of warm citrus, honeycomb and a singular...
Pre-Arrival
Patz & Hall Chardonnay Hyde Vineyard 2017
750ml - Case of 6
Bottle:
$79.96
The 2017 Chardonnay Hyde Vineyard, which comes from a great vineyard in Carneros, ratchets up the intensity and...
Chardonnay Petite Sirah 2012 2017 United States California
Of all the white wine grape varietals, surely the one which has spread the furthest and is most widely appreciated is the Chardonnay. This green skinned grape is now grown all over the Old and New Worlds, from New Zealand to the Americas, from England to Chile, and is one of the first varietals people think of when considering white wine grapes. Perhaps this is because of its huge popularity which reached a peak in the 1990s, thanks to new technologies combining with traditional methods to bring the very best features out of the Chardonnay grape, and allow its unique qualities to shine through. Most fine Chardonnay wines use a process known as malolactic fermentation, wherein the malic acids in the grape juice are converted to lactic acids, allowing a creamier, buttery nature to come forward in the wine. No grape varietal is better suited to this process than Chardonnay, which manages to balance these silky, creamy notes with fresh white fruit flavors beautifully.
Petite Sirah was first brought from France to America in the 1880s. It later went on to become one of the only grapes to make it through the devastating Phylloxera virus in the 1890s, both World Wars, and the Great Depression. During Prohibition, it was a main ingredient used to make sacramental wines. In fact, through the 1960s it was a major blending grape in a number of the finest wines produced in California.
By itself, a bottle of Petite Sirah usually has no problem making a quick impression on consumers. With a large amount of natural color and tannins, wines made with the grape commonly feature intensive sweet fruit characteristics like fresh raspberry or blackberry jam, black pepper spice, and plenty of backbone or structure.
There are a number of different styles available. Some concentrate on highlighting fresh, fruity flavors; others are bigger, more voluptuous; and it keeps going up the ladder until you reach the powerful, more machismo-style category.
Of all the New World wine countries, perhaps the one which has demonstrated the most flair for producing high quality wines - using a combination of traditional and forward-thinking contemporary methods - has been the United States of America. For the past couple of centuries, the United States has set about transforming much of its suitable land into vast vineyards, capable of supporting a wide variety of world-class grape varietals which thrive on both the Atlantic and the Pacific coastlines. Of course, we immediately think of sun-drenched California in regards to American wines, with its enormous vineyards responsible for the New World's finest examples of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot based wines, but many other states have taken to viticulture in a big way, with impressive results. Oregon, Washington State and New York have all developed sophisticated and technologically advanced wine cultures of their own, and the output of U.S wineries is increasing each year as more and more people are converted to their produce.
California as a wine producing region has grown in size and importance considerably over the past couple of centuries, and today is the proud producer of more than ninety percent of the United States' wines. Indeed, if California was a country, it would be the fourth largest producer of wine in the world, with a vast range of vineyards covering almost half a million acres. The secret to California's success as a wine region has a lot to do with the high quality of its soils, and the fact that it has an extensive Pacific coastline which perfectly tempers the blazing sunshine it experiences all year round. The winds coming off the ocean cool the vines, and the natural valleys and mountainsides which make up most of the state's wine regions make for ideal areas in which to cultivate a variety of high quality grapes.