2021 Bootlegger’s Hill Vineyard Chardonnay
96 points
Wine Spectator
From one of the coldest vineyards we work with, this increasingly famous site sits on a high ridge just east of the town of Occidental. The nose shows lemon and grapefruit zest, honey toffee and Jasmine tea, cardamom-clove, pineapple, and green apple along with a toasty hazelnut note. The palate is full of mineral-laced acidity, while maintaining an oily richness that is beguilingly dense and lingering before the profound acidity clears the way for the next sip.
2021 will be remembered as a challenging year, with record low rainfall producing smaller vine growth and very low yields of very small berries. 2021 is also a remarkably fine vintage with many wines performing near their best in quality. The young 2021 wines are showing great promise as intensely concentrated, complex wines, sure to give pleasurable drinking for years to come.
Planted in 2007 by renowned winegrower Charlie Chenoweth, this is the growing into one of the finest single vineyard Chardonnays in the Patz & Hall portfolio. Situated eight miles from the chilly Pacific Ocean, Bootlegger’s Hill is a very cool site, with shallow Goldridge soils that produce low yields of very small-berried clusters with high acidity. This wine was made entirely from a prized west-facing block of Hyde-Wente clone Chardonnay grown on 420A rootstock.
100% Whole-cluster pressed
100% Burgundian French oak barrels (30% new; 70% 1&2 year-old). All 3-year aged staves
Aged 16 months on primary lees before bottling
Bottled without filtration to preserve the wine’s aromas and flavors and enhance aging potential
- Type:
- White
- Varietal:
- Chardonnay
- Region:
- California
- Appellation:
- Russian River Valley
- Vintage:
- 2021
- Blend:
- 100% Chardonnay fruit
- Aging:
- Sur lie aged with regular stirring
- Alcohol:
- 13.5%
- Fermentation:
- 100% indigenous yeast fermentations; 100% malo-lactic fermentation in barrel