Gallo Estate Chardonnay 2005 take 2

Ernest & Julio Gallo, Sonoma Coast, Estate, Chardonnay 2005 This wine is firing on all cylinders: the fruit, the acidity and the complexing agents of the winemaker.This is a wine that would make an aritisan in the village of Meursault quite proud, where richness matches acidity, creating a wine to drink today yet able to go the distance in the cellar. It would be nice to try this another 6 years down the road, as the oak integrates more fully into the juicy green apples. This bottle is a media sample, price and production details are below.

The previous bottle (see notes below) had a touch of TCA. The challenge of that nasty taint is that it hides all that you might experience in a bottle of wine. Sure, when TCA is blaring overtly, it is ruinous to the experience and an obvious flaw. Yet often, the taint is more like a veil through which you are forced to look, getting a rather faint experience of the wine’s true soul. It’s almost like you only see the shadows on the wall, that Plato talked of, allegorically giving a sense of reality.

Notes from the November 5 post:  The nose features toasty oak and freshly baked biscuits. In the mouth the richness of the notes described in the nose is accentuated by a thickness and viscosity yet there is nerve, acidity as if from fresh green apples. This is one of those Chardonnays that demonstrates that you can have the richness that people expect from California Chard with the acidity that Burgundy hounds demand – a great wine except for a bit of TCA intruding. I hope to try another bottle of this vintage. The wine was barrel fermented and aged in new French oak for 12 months. Vinted and bottled in Healdsburg 13.7% $50 at the winery, a gift Gallo Sonoma

About RJ

Ray Johnson is the Executive Director of the Wine Business Institute at Sonoma State University. He writes about food and wine, his travels and the business of wine. He makes his home in Sonoma County, California.
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