Winter Release Hyde Vineyard Chardonnay (formerly Clare)
2017

Winemaker’s Notes

We’ve partnered with the venerable Hyde Family since 2002, custom farming our three and a half acres of Old Wente fruit. In 2017, we harvested our hillside parcels over three days, starting from the top where the soils are the leanest and the vines produce the most concentrated grapes. This bottling comprises 22 select barrels, wine made exclusively from the fruit of the upper part of the vineyard, full of vine extract and density with high acidity and tremendously rich of flavor. Really, the best of the best.

The resulting wine is dense, chewy and mineral-drenched—there are no simple tropical fruits on display here. There’s near-perfect balance between richness, breadth and length with a strong emphasis on savory/saline complexity. As the wine opens—and it takes some time to do so—some complex lemon zest/turmeric/spearmint notes emerge. This wine transcends simple flavor descriptors, such is its power and intensity. It’s a defining wine for us and one of the greatest wines of any variety or color that we’ve ever bottled.

This is a wine of overriding Hyde Vineyard signature, one that will live for a long time in your cellar. I recommend drinking over a decade from mid-2020 onward.

Andy Smith