Wine Advisor
Racines, Wenzlau Family Vineyard Chardonnay 2020
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Description
Tasting notes
Reviewed by: Antonio Galloni
The 2020 Chardonnay Wenzlau Family Vineyard is one of the highlights in this range from Racines. Bright and dynamic, the 2020 is fresh, complex and also quite structured, making for a wonderfully complete wine that captures the essence of this rugged Sta. Rita Hills site. Readers should expect an intensely mineral, savory Chardonnay. I loved it.
About the Producer
Racines is a collaboration led by Étienne de Montille and Brian Sieve of Burgundy and Rodolphe Péters of Champagne. Étienne and Brian had been on an exploratory trip to California and Oregon in search of a place where they could put down roots for a initial project beyond of France. In the Santa Rita Hills, they found the precision and finesse they were looking for. A year later Rodolphe Péters, with a similar intent, joined to create a range of sparkling wines, also from the Santa Rita Hills. The team came together to join their individual experiences in hand-crafting wines of purity and transparency to create a range of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the cool climate of the Sta. Rita Hills in California. Racines represents the coming together of all that is wondrous about Burgundy, Champagne and California. While very much an expression of this unique terroir, the Racines wines exhibit some different qualities to those we have come to expect from the Santa Rita Hills. Pinot Noirs — employing whole-cluster fermentation, adding elegance, lift and spiciness, combined with pigéage throughout fermentation, offering a burlier, more extracted flavor profile, with more weight, volume and exceptional aging potential. Chardonnays — grown several miles from the ocean in ancient marine sea-beds, giving these wines a sense of energy, transparency and precision, and the advantage of being crafted with the techniques and expertise of hundreds of years of Burgundian and Champagnes winemaking.
