Chardonnay
Helfer Vineyard, 2009

$ 62.00

The Helfer Vineyard is located in the Vine Hill area of the Russian River Valley. The vineyard’s densely planted vines require hand cultivation and yield more concentrated fruit than can be achieved by traditional California vine spacing. We bottle this Chardonnay without fining or filtration to preserve its finer qualities.

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Winemaker's Notes

This is our twelfth vintage of working with this tiny vineyard in the Russian River Valley. I generally try a small bit of experimentation here and there with some of our wine lots. It seemed time to take a fresh look at how we approach this property. In 2009 I was persuaded by Tom Klassen, who worked with us during part of the previous two harvests, to try something new with this wine: foregoing the usual inoculation with my traditional yeast culture in favor of encouraging indigenous yeasts to successively take turns with the fermentation over a very long period of time. The resulting wine has a somewhat rounder, sweeter feel to it, reminiscent of the fresh Chardonnay fruit flavors. It finishes with ample acidity (of course) and is a nice twist on an old friend.