Leese Fitch Chardonnay

The 27 Chardonnay blend for LeeseFitch was assembled from some of ourbest lots in our California portfolio. Wewanted to blend a wine that had goodChard character and mouthfeel whilestill maintaining some acidity in orderto pair this wine with food. Our blendmainly comprises itself of two lots.The Livermore fruit was picked in earlySeptember and fermented slowly onFrench oak staves. This wine was thenaged on the lees for 4 months beforebeing racked and stabilized.The Monterey fruit was picked in lateOctober because the fruit took a longtime to ripen in the cool Montereyweather. This wine was crushed at oneof our best coastal custom crushfacilities where it was also fermentedon French oak staves and aged sur leesfor almost 8 months. In order to createa creamy mouthfeel, we stirred the leestwice a month for the 8 months todevelop mouthfeel.The result is a wine with good crispacids and a lot of tropical fruitbalanced by integrated French oak.This wine has some good lemon dropflavors with an edge of porcinimushroom to give the wine somedepth and complexity. We wanted thiswine to be a great wine by the glass atyour local bistro and a great value atyour local wine shop.