Ifyoulikea great unoakedChardonnaythat is packed with aromas and flavors of tropicalfruit, lemonandgreenapplethen the real deal is in a bottle of Leaping Horse Vineyards!
Chamisal winemaker Fintan du Fresne who hails from New Zealand, where unoakedChardonnay is quite commonplace said he thinks today's U.S. wine drinkers get what the Stainless name means.
The last was a soft, lush and ripe wine made even more memorable by its packaging (a gray ceramic bottle that one friend said "looked like a bomb that you'd light with a fuse and throw" making perhaps the first unoakedChardonnay Molotov cocktail).
In no particular order, our favorites included the fresh and citrusy 2011 Paul Hobbs CrossBarn Sonoma Coast, the lively 2011 Chamisal Stainless Central Coast, the complex 2010 Ramey Russian River Valley as well as the elegant 2010 Etude Carneros, the 2011 Williams Selyem UnoakedChardonnay and the 2011 Mer Soleil Silver.