Elite Chardonnay

Filed in archive California Wines on June 1, 2006

I've already confessed that I'm a bit of a chardonnay snob, so I was a little, okay, a lot surprised by this article concerning the elite chardonnay wine makers and a bottle that goes for $80. I just don't see me going there.

From Globe and Mail: Pick of the week Kistler Chardonnay Sonoma Coast 2004 ($79.95, product No. 642710) is a splurge-worthy luxury. Full-bodied and luscious, it's stacked with tropical fruit flavours and notes of toasted bread and stony minerals. [...]

One of a small band of super-elite chardonnay makers in California (another is Peter Michael, one of Tom Cruise's favourites), Kistler is a small, family-owned producer based in the Russian River Valley north of San Francisco.

It was founded in the late 1970s by Steve Kistler, a Stanford University graduate who studied oenology at the University of California at Davis before launching his wine career at famed zinfandel producer Ridge Vineyards. Kistler makes small quantities of excellent pinot noir and cabernet sauvignon too, but he built his fame mainly on a variety of single-vineyard chardonnays that range in price from $70 to more than $100. Yes, those numbers are insane, but comparable Montrachets (and Kistler's wines are in that league) start at a couple of hundred dollars a bottle.