Commune of Buttons 'ABC' Chardonnay

Ok let’s talk about Chardonnay! Seems like it’s often a love/hate situation. I used to sorta in the middle - I mean, I LOVE a good Chablis and a great bottle of Champagne! And don’t even get me started on some other white Burgundies I’ve fallen in love with over the years.

But Chardonnay can also be sorta boring - it’s like a sponge grape. Soaks up its environment and anything you do to it … but leave it alone (no additives or new oak) and grow the vines in the right soil, it will reward you greatly!

And that’s exactly what Jasper & Sophie have done with this stunning Chardonnay! 

Planted 20+ years ago in the coolest part of the vineyard by their mother, the ‘ABC’ vineyard is 1h parcel facing due east on a gentle slope at the bottom of the valley with the sandstone shelf quite close to the surface. Perfect for this grape! When Jasper & Sophie took over & converted everything to organics, etc. this parcel really began to shine!!

Hand-harvested and allowed to cool overnight then gently pressed into stainless steel tanks for the ‘wild fermentation’ aka native yeast primary fermentation. The juice is moved to large, completely neutral barrels where it ages for about a year with the fine lees - some gentle stirring occurs to make sure everybody is getting all-friendly like (juice meet fine lees: fine lees meet juice). LOL!! 

So before you run off and google fine lees’ fine lees, lemme give a quick description - lees are dead yeast cells that gradually settle on the bottom of a fermentation vessel after they do their job and ferment all the sugars in the grape juice. Gross lees are also bits of stems, seeds, skins. Fine lees have a silkier consistency than gross lees and tend to lend a creamy texture to wine. Both a byproduct of winemaking,

Resuming my hard-core crush on ‘ABC’ - this is a light, yet textural Chardonnay that is beautifully clean and fresh! There are fresh-crop Golden Delicious and Asian pear with an underlying savory herbal vibe. A strong core of clay minerality shows up from the sandstone & the tannins keep it in balance. The texture and stunningly balanced acidity balanced everything together in a way that is simply stunning!