Kistler Chardonnay Sonoma Mountain

From the winery:

"Kistler Chardonnays are all made from a proprietary California heritage clone, isolated originally from a grand Cru Burgundy vineyard. An intense sense of the mountain heritage of the delicate stone fruit that is lifted, like its McCrea cousin, yet firmer, and with a stronger core and added layers of richness. 

"The Kistler plantings on Sonoma Mountain, situated on a hillside bench perfectly suited for growing world class Chardonnay, are interlaced with the rare combination of red volcanic and fine-grained chalky soils. These are east facing terraced vineyards, shadowed from the afternoon sun by giant redwoods. This is a remarkable marriage of soil, site and orientation. The Kistler Chardonnay selection coupled with textbook growing conditions provide for a wine that is decidedly Sonoma Mountain in character. Annually this vineyard delivers some of the earliest fruit Kistler harvests. This early maturation results in wine driven by a grounded, focused mineral core yet lifted by striking ethereal tones of vibrant light fruit raised at elevation, more influenced by morning sun than that of the late afternoon.

"After thoughtful selection at the sorting table, whole clusters are fed by hand directly into the press. An extremely gentle 2-hour Champagne program is used to produce the best juice with the finest solids. The juice is consolidated in tank and then, without cold settling, is transferred directly to barrel with its fine lees. Driven solely by naturally occurring yeasts, the wine is barrel-fermented. Kistler Chardonnay fermentation temperatures are warm by California standards, but very much like Burgundy was made 20 years ago. The wine is fermented bone-dry. After a complete malolactic fermentation, the wine sees 11 months of barrel age with no battonage. The wine spends an additional 3 months in tank before being bottled without fining or filtration."