The Talleys are a joy
to work with. When presented with an overabundant crop in 2000,
they graciously thinned it down for us, which helped the vines
concentrate the flavor they produce into fewer clusters of grapes-and
I am certain it made the difference between good wine and special
wine. One sniff and it's obvious what we have here-- a very successful
wine. The aromas are so charming! A chef from L.A. visiting here
a while back stuck his nose into a glass of this wine, smiled,
and said it smelled exactly like Bartlett pears, and does it ever!
The flavors are lush and concentrated, and a lemony, toasty taste
lingers pleasantly on the tongue. If you are looking for subtlety
and fineness, try our Clos Pepe Chardonnay-Talley-Rincon chardonnay
is bold and powerful!
Made in our non-interventionist
fashion, the fruit is gently whole cluster pressed into a combination
of new and older barrels. We let the native yeast initiate fermentation,
and, when the juice becomes wine, it undergoes the secondary malo-lactic
fermentation. In our cool cellar this can take up to a year to
complete. The wine is never racked off the yeast lees until it
goes into the bottling tank. An old-school winemaking friend called
this technique the lazy man's method of winemaking, but we feel
that taking every effort to avoid moving or processing the wine
helps us preserve its true character.