Community Tasting Note
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WoodieBayArea wrote: flawed
December 19, 2013 - bad taste and effervescence, spoiled in a way with which i'm not familiar
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3 Comments
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David Ramey commented:
12/20/13, 9:46 AM - Jonallen--since we only move our wines three times in their life, including to bottle, we retain much of the CO2 from the yeast and malolactic fermentations. This can lend a slight petillance which helps the wine to age well, adding life and freshness. It in no way a sign of spoilage--all of our wines are bone dry and finished malo. That liveliness may not be something you're used to, but it's part of our house style.
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WoodieBayArea commented:
10/15/15, 1:15 PM - slow response but wanted to say thanks, i do now let wines decant as long as they need to throw off any effervescence, not sure if it was something else with this particular bottle (too long ago to remember), but i would say i love bright, acidic, tense, lively chardonnay (i drink 98% white burgs, lots of chablis)... from your response i think i may need to buy a few of your bottles and try, yes?... lastly, what did you mean by "finished malo"... my impression is that malo fermentation makes the wine rich / rounded (not my style)... thanks again for the input
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David Ramey commented:
10/15/15, 3:42 PM - I think you win the record for delayed comment, Jon! The 2002 vintage was the bottling with the highest level of CO2; we've moderated a bit since. It does help the wine age, though. On malo-lactic, you should know that essentially all white Burgundies go through malolactic--this is something that wines do naturally unless the winemaker intervenes with SO2. So ML-plus Chards don't have to be fat and blowsy.
If you get the Wall Street Journal, Lettie Teague recommends our 2012 Russian River Chardonnay in today's online version; it will be in Saturday's print issue. And by all means, check out our Chards: www.rameywine.com.
If you know Don Cornwell's website on Burgundy premox you might check the results of the tasting at Valentino--our 2006 Hyde was second in its flight.