2016 Bodega Catena Zapata Chardonnay Catena High Mountain Vines

Community Tasting Notes (22) Avg Score: 87.4 points

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  2/26/2022 - johnrm Likes this wine: 90 Points

  As my last note (Nov. 2021). Attractive fruit on the fragrant nose, Elegant palate, refined, with good fruit, balance and length. It improved and opened over 3-4 hours both on its own and with food (salmon). Well worth keeping until now.

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  11/26/2021 - johnrm Likes this wine: 90 Points

  A good, quite pale, colour. As it warmed, the nose showed refined lemon citrus character with restrained tropical fruit. There was white peach, a hint of cantaloupe melon on the soft, rich palate with beautifully integrated hints of oak and good mouthfeel. It showed very good length and balance with some minerality. It had an understated, subtle character with considerable elegance. Reminiscent, to me, of a high quality Macon Chardonnay.
  A fine Chardonnay, well worth keeping for 5 years before tasting (as usual with this wine). Elegant and refined. Good with food but it gave pleasure in its own. 90+
  Looking over previous notes and having now tasted this vintage, I cannot recognise the comment from ‘upfromthecellar’ (perhaps an out-of-condition bottle?) or a score of 75 from a poster who nevertheless thought it a ‘solid’ wine (this score appears to have been raised later by the poster). I agree with most commentators who enjoyed the wine. IMO it deserves a higher overall score than the current 86.8 average.

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  5/22/2020 - beatles wrote: 89 Points

  Quite delicate. Fine balance between some buttery gras and a mineral touch, some exotic fruit and mango. Somewhat rich, but certainly elegant,

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  5/8/2020 - flwinos wrote: 89 Points

  Solid value - balanced chardonnay.

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  5/6/2020 - UpfromtheCellar wrote: 86 Points

  The best analogy I can think of with this wine is opening a can of frozen concentrated orange juice, you remember, the one where it says to pour into a large container and add three more cans of cold water, stir and serve? Well what if instead of three more cans you added seven? Or even ten? Is it still orange juice? I mean sure, there is some recognizable "essence" of orange juice still left in your glass, but to put it bluntly, IT TASTES ALL WATERED DOWN.
  
  This effort by Bodega Catena Zapata is EXACTLY like that. There is a hint, a promise of Chardonnay on the nose - pineapple spice and other vague tropical fruits, but on the palate its almost watery, neutral, non-existent. Everyone agreed it was "ok", meaning it wasn't nasty or sour or tart or sweet. But as to what it actually tasted like (apart from "wet"), lets just say no one could quite put their finger on it.....

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