Basically, its Sam Kaplan’s (Arkenstone, Memento Mori, Vangone) personal venture/label, where he makes Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the UV Vineyard from the Calera and Wente clone, respectively. Burgundian in style.
MAXEM is a new project from Sam and Nancy Kaplan. Sam makes the wine for Arkenstone, Vangone, and Memento Mori. He also used to make Nine Suns up until 2017 vintage. The grapes are sourced from Sonoma (UV Vineyard, I believe). I had these wines back in April and they were delicious.
Out of curiosity, how would you compare them to VV’s Platt Vineyard Chard/PN? I’ve had both and have my own opinions on them, but wanted to hear others.
We actually just did a direct comparison of the two a couple weeks ago (VV chard and Pinot vs Maxem chard and Pinot). For our tastes they were very close in terms of preference. I believe we gave a slight edge to the VV chard and the pinots were too close to call.