2015 Mindego Ridge Vineyard Chardonnay Magnum
$136
100% estate, single vineyard fruit. Winemaker is San Francisco Chronicle's Winemaker of the Year Ehren Jordan. With only 1.5 acres of Chardonnay planted, the vineyard is composed of silty clay loam over sandstone and fractured shale. Mindego Ridge 2015 Chardonnay is especially rich and opulent in this vintage. Apricot, peach, brioche, orange confit, tropical fruit and butter are all pushed forward. Exotic, bold and racy to the core, the Chardonnay has a lot to say. Readers should expect an extroverted, almost viscous style. Antonio Galloni
Drinking window: 2018-2023
Acclaim For This Bottle
“Mindego Ridge’s 2015 Chardonnay is especially rich and opulent in this vintage. Apricot, peach, brioche, orange confit, tropical fruit and butter are all pushed forward. Exotic, bold and racy to the core, the Chardonnay has a lot to say. Readers should expect an extroverted, almost viscous style” 93 Points. -Antonio Galloni, Vinous
Technical Notes
In The Vineyard
The 2015 growing season could be described as a tragic romance with heartbreak, folly and a silver lining ending. Despite warm winter months and early bud break, May’s unrelenting cool, damp weather during bloom handicapped pollination and led to poor fruit set and shatter. A little more than half of our normal crop size developed into viable fruit. Late summer heat spikes of several 100-plus-degree days then harkened fast and early ripening of the crop that remained, hindering normal sizing of fruit prior to veraison. This produced clusters half their normal size with tightly packed tiny berries. The beauty that quells this farmer’s heartbreak is that the limited amount of wine made from the 2015 vintage shows deep concentration with amazing acidity, fine grained tannins and the structure to cellar for years to come.
In The Cellar
To preserve the character of both the vineyard and vintage, the grapes are whole-cluster pressed directly to 15% new, 75% neutral French oak and 10% stainless steel. The wine is fermented with indigenous yeast followed by native ML fermentation, with 11 months on lees. This gentle process provides us a stable wine requiring neither fining nor filtration before bottling.
Data
Appellation: Santa Cruz Mountains
Winemaker: Ehren Jordan
Acreage: 1.3 acres Chardonnay, 100% Estate Grown
Exposure & Slope: South facing mountain slopes, 15-20%
Soil Type: 10-18” of silty clay loam over fractured shale subsoil
Marine Influence: 9 miles from the Pacific, adjacent to redwoods
Elevation: 675’ to 725’
Clone Selection: Dijon (17, 76, 96)
Rootstock Selection: 3309
Vine Spacing: 7’ x 4’ (1600 vines/acre)
Yield: 1.9 tons per acre
Harvest: September 24, 2015
Barrel Regimen: French Oak, François Frères, 15% new, 75% neutral; 10% stainless steel
Barrel Aging: 11 months
Finished Alcohol: 13.9%
Chemistry @ Harvest:
22.6 Brix
3.54 pH
7.2 g/L titratable acidity
Bottled: August 17, 2016
171 cases produced
