1977 Stony Hill Chardonnay

Community Tasting Notes (1) Avg Score: 92 points

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  5/1/2006 - PaulH wrote: 92 Points

  Old California Wines with Francois Audouze (Jack Falstaff Restaurant - San Francisco, California): Another one of the Un-Dead Chardonnays! I had just tasted the 1979 La Crema Vinera Chardonnay Winery Lake Vineyard when someone suggested the bottle of 1977 Stony Hill was better. Surely, I thought, this fellow has had too much to drink. But I tasted it, and he may have been right! Stony Hill is one of the oldest Chardonnay producers in California. Their vines were planted in the late 1940's and they have been making Chardonnay commercially since 1952. With this kind of evidence, one begins to suspect that the there is much to be said for the traditional ways of doing things! The wine had a tremendous nose of ripe California fruit and the color, was a still a pale gold. From those two clues, no one would have ever guessed the age of the wine, but had they tasted it, they might have supposed it was five or six years old! It had the richness characteristic of Calif chardonnay plus some minerality acting as a foundation; being more fruit-forward than the La Crema, the acid wasn't as noticeable, but the wine was unbelievably bright and fresh, and the fact that the fruit was still so lush after all of this time was nothing short of jaw-dropping amazing. The La Crema was more like a Chablis, and the Stony Hill was more New World, but they are truly a Dynamic Duo, the Chardonnays that will live forever.

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