Gryphon, 2004 Kevin Olson Vineyard Monterey Chardonnay $23

Madrona 2005 Estate Grown Chardonnay El Dorado $16

Bouchaine, 2004 Napa Valley, Carneros Chardonnay $20

All Estate Grown

Chronicle: Silver
Finger Lakes: Bronze

This one took a while to open. It had a somewhat unpleasant wet straw nose to start, but opened nicely to green apple, grapefruit and lemon with a more pleasant background earthiness. The palate was really nice citrus fruit, somewhat more ripe in flavor than would have been expected from the nose. There was a good deal of butteriness to the feel.

This had a wonderfully complex nose of perfume, cantaloupe, butter, baked apple pie, tropical fruit and just a hint of oak. The palate was had much more apparent oak, although still just a light toast and spice, a slight nuttiness with grapefruit and lime in the finish.

The nose had great tropical fruit, mostly pineapple, some light green apples and citrus. There was great butter, toast, a bit of aromatics and a slight earthiness. The palate was great making spice, tropical fruit, mostly pineapple, and some lovely grapefruit. There was a nice bit of butter and toastiness.

The mouthfeel was fairly light with very little tannin apparent.

The mouthfeel was soft, full and nicely rounded.

The mouthfeel was incredible satan with a good butteriness.

This was a fairly fruity wine with some nice earthy tones and medium complexity. The finish was fairly long and consisted of citrus fruit and bright acidity.

This was a nicely complex wine with a good combination of fruit and toast. The finish was medium plus with nice toast moving to good citric fruit in the end.

This had a great complexity of fruit with other lovely perfumed aromatics and just the slightest kiss of oak. The finish was long with acidity and citrus in the attack followed by oak and moving to great butter in the ending.

Although this wine started out slow it ended up with a good showing of the standard Chardonnay fruit characteristics and bright acidity.

Another lovely
Chardonnay that has light oak, but is not overpowered by it, allowing the fruit to shine in the finish. The oak was on the light side making this a good candidate for food pairings.

This was a great wine. The balance between fruit, alcohol and acid was beautifully done with great mouthfeel and a long, pleasant finish. This was the crowd favorite and worked well with the dinner of chicken, corn and potato salad that followed.