Winemaker Notes
The finished wine is bone dry, loaded with fresh minerality. It’s bright and crisp, with flavors both complex and rich.
The alcohol level is low, and the wine is ideal with all seafood, especially oysters. I especially enjoy a cold glass of it at the end of the day, though — all by itself.
Professional Ratings
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Tasting Panel
No oak here! Offering up lemon sorbet and a wave of crisp pear ignited by white pepper, this Chardonnay has a lightness of being that complements its edgy, Old World persona. The grapes were sourced from the small, rocky Paul Larson Vineyard in Carneros near San Pablo Bay and blended with fruit from the Trinchero family's Russian River estate; planted in 1994 to Wente Selection Chardonnay, Paul Larson is a low-yielding site battered by cooling winds and typically harvested in late October. The grapes are picked at night and gently crushed on a Champagne cycle in a pneumatic press, then transferred to stainless steel, where the wine remains from native yeast fermentation to bottling. Malolactic fermentation is inhibited after primary, and it ages on its fine lees.
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James Suckling
Green apples, pears, green star fruit and some oatmeal follow through to a direct, medium-bodied palate with fresh, medium acidity.
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Wine Spectator
Fresh, clean and crisp, showing a core of Meyer lemon, Honeycrisp apple and pear flavors that are intense and juicy, with a hint of crunchy sea salt lingering on the finish. Drink now. 4,063 cases made.
"In 1999, Bruce and Barbara Neyers purchased and renovated a winery on a thirty-acre parcel in the Sage Canyon area of Napa Valley. Over the next 14 months they built a modern, highly functional winery designed for traditional winemaking practices. They produced their first vintage in this state of the art facility in 2000. In 2002, Wine and Spirits Magazine named Neyers Vineyards the Artisan Winery of the Year.
About 25% of our production is Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon grown on Bruce and Barbara’s 50-acre, Conn Valley ranch. They purchase additional grapes from a select group of growers, among them the Sangiacomo family of the Carneros District, Will Nord of Napa, the Rossi Ranch of Sonoma County, Markus Bokisch and the Evangelho family.
Even though Neyers Vineyards sits in the heart of the Napa Valley, Bruce's experience with French wine importer Kermit Lynch has had an undeniable influence on their wines. Many of the French producers Bruce has worked with farm organically, make their wines naturally without use of cultured yeast or laboratory designed malo-lactic starter, and bottle their wines without fining or filtration. Neyers barrels are made in France, to our specifications, from wood that we buy in bulk and air dry for three years, two years longer than normal. All of the grapes are picked by hand, into small bins that hold only one-half ton. They are then laboriously hand sorted and inspected at the winery as winemaker Tadeo Borchardt gently guides the winemaking process along. As Bruce says, “No expense has been spared in our grape growing, winemaking practices, or processing equipment, yet customers repeatedly tell us that our wines represent great value in today's highly competitive wine market.” Bruce Neyers produces his own content for the company blog, “Vintner Tales.” "
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Home to a diverse array of smaller AVAs with varied microclimates and soil types, Sonoma County has something for every wine lover. Physically twice as large as Napa Valley, the region only produces about half the amount of wine but boasts both tremendous quality and variety. With its laid-back atmosphere and down-to-earth attitude, the wineries of Sonoma are appreciated by wine tourists for their friendliness and approachability. The entire county intends to become a 100% sustainable winegrowing region by 2019.
Sonoma County wines are produced with carefully selected grape varieties to reflect the best attributes of their sites—Dry Creek Valley’s consistent sunshine is ideal for Zinfandel, while the warm Alexander Valley is responsible for rich, voluptuous red wines like Cabernet Sauvignon. Chardonnay and Pinot Noir are important throughout the county, most notably in the cooler AVAs of Russian River, Sonoma Coast and Carneros. Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot and Syrah have also found a firm footing here.