Zepaltas Wines

I feel like I will never truly master making Chardonnay, but I feel like I have come a long way since 2005. I think when I first started, I worried about what I needed to do, and now I am more concerned with what I don’t need to do. In short, when you find a site like Keefer Ranch, most of the hard work is done in the vineyard, and the winemaker’s job is to not screw things up.

We did a have a bit of a scare in the vineyard during 2010. As mentioned before, the summer was ultra-cool, but we experienced one really extreme heat spike in late August. The heat wave ruined a lot of fruit in the vineyard. In Sonoma County, many growers pulled more leaves in the fruit zone in effort to help push ripening ahead, because the vines were so behind schedule. When the heat spike hit, it was devastating. Hot, Piercing sun began to burn clusters and they basically turned to mush. At Keefer, we lost about half of the crop in our rows due to this heat (on the afternoon sun side of the vines.) Luckily, what remained on the morning side of the vines was safe, and in the end, produced the amazing fruit that we have come to expect.

As you can probably guess, the 2010 Babushka Chardonnay is 100% Keefer Ranch Vineyard. On the nose we get the usual hints of lemon zest, wet stones and tonic. On the palate there are flavors of citrus, flan, and as it opens up, hints of toasted brioche. The wine was aged for 14 months in 100% French oak bbls (25% new.) This wine is more brisk than the 2009 bottling, so it is going to need some cellar time to round out. Though, if you like your Chardonnay racy, this wine is good to go right now.

98 cases made