Cline 2010 Cool Climate Chardonnay Wine

The majority of the Chardonnay for this wine comes from our Lazy C Vineyard on Sonoma Coast. The area experiences the cooling effect of the Pacific with ocean breezes and fog most days during the growing season. It is a renowned growing region for Chardonnay where the fruit develops bright acids and big apple-pear character as it ripens slowly over the course of the long, cool growing season.

The 2010 growing season was very cool with the exception of a few hot days. Cool weather toward the end of the season and above average rainfall led us to harvest when the fruit was slightly lower in sugar. The resulting wine is delicate, complex and elegant. After handpicking and de-stemming, the fruit was pumped directly to our tank press where the juice was gently extracted. It was then pumped into a settling tank, cooled to 55°F, then racked (decanted) to the fermenting tank. We added pure wine yeast and kept the fermentation at 55°F to maintain the fresh fruit character. Fifty percent of the wine was fermented four months sur lees in new American oak barrels to bring out a creamy, toasty character, and the rest we kept chilled in stainless tanks. The wine was blended back together, cold stabilized at 28°F, and filtered before bottling.

This classic, versatile Chardonnay will pair beautifully with a wide variety of light to medium bodied foods, or as a stand-alone aperitif.