at first the nose suggests a delicate wine, but after a few minutes it amps up with lemon curd, banana, and some vanilla bean deep in the mix, but what is most apparent here is coconut and butterscotch. one of my favorite aspects of the rhys chards i’ve had is the precision of the acid and it’s balance by the fruit and minerality; this interplay is lacking here. enough acid to keep it from falling flat, however. in fact, after an hour of being opened, the acid kicks up yet another notch, but still no where near what the alpine typically delivers. medium (for a chard), almost creamy body. a suggestion of crisp citrus on the finish with minerals, however the the lingering butterscotch and tropical fruit on the finish is a bit much for me.
i’d like to see what this does with more time. it’s certainly a fine bottle, just different from the rest of the chard portfolio not towards my preference.
Second note in as many days ( the other on CT) that has noted the butterscotch. I haven’t received mine yet, but will check in on this as soon as they arrive.
Great nose. Corton Charlie like with the pear and tropical fruit but the palate is fat and flabby lacking in acid with a really short finish. I thought itd pick up over time but it didn’t.
Tastes like a village burg from 06 burgundy with all the flabbiness.
I think what is important to remember with this particular bottling is that it is made up of only Horseshoe vineyard fruit. What didn’t make the vineyard designate went into this one. It should be an instructive contrast to try the designate bottle.
Tim,
Just to clarify (from a technical rather than sensory standpoint), the acidity in this wine is higher than many Burgs we test. I would still describe it as moderate rather than high or low.
It’s troubling to hear that some haven’t enjoyed this as prior to this thread we had only encountered enthusiasm. Of course we did declassify the fruit so we didn’t find it completely “up to snuff” ourselves. The barrels that made the vineyard designated bottling have much more precision and lack the richness of declassified bottling.
This sounds interesting. How does that relate to ripeness, alcohol, acidity, etc?
I have this picture of some other hypothetical winery making exactly the opposite decisions with the same fruit… which is why I stopped buying Chardonnay from CA.
Craig,
Both wines were picked at about the same level of ripeness (ie very low sugar by current CA standards) and the alc and acid are pretty similar between the two wines (The SVD lot has slightly higher alc and slightly higher acid). The main difference is the siting. The SVD lots came from the shallowest (1.5ft), rockiest soils and the Appellation wine came from a deeper-soiled (3 ft) section of Horseshoe vineyard. In 2010, this section was more comparable and was included in the Horseshoe Vyd Chard bottling.
They are not particularly similar which is a why we made two bottlings. Also, the Sc Mtn has a barrel of declassified Alpine in addition to declassified Horseshoe barrels.
We had this last night before the pre-Thanksgiving feast. The wine initially showed some overtly butterscotch notes and was a bit flabby but I have to say that after 30 minutes, as the wine warmed up and got some air, the acidity really started to come through and the wine started to shine. A small glass that was left on the counter and consumed after dinner was really good. The butterscotch/oak notes really had subsided and the wine had great lift from the palate cleansing acidity on the finish.
Having this tonight, nose of peach preserves juice, pineapple, and yellow apple, with a palate missing the requisite acidity to balance it, fat, rich, ripe. I hope the last two of these balance themselves with cellar time, won’t touch another for 4-5 years and hope.
Not my favorite today, but have faith in Kevin and Jeff based on past performance with Rhys. Maybe an Alesia wine in the future versus a Rhys wine for SC Mtn Chard?
Kevin recommends drinking these now and enjoying the wine for what it is. This advice along with other notes, which all seem very similar, make me think holding these for another 4-5 years will be a disappointing exercise. Glad I only purchased a couple.
I generally let my wines like Rhys sit for a while (sometimes more than a year) before trying them. I’m in no hurry to drink this either (especially since it’s winter), but I’m curious if anyone tried decanting this to see if it helps dissipate the butterscotch notes?
I generally let my wines like Rhys sit for a while (sometimes more than a year) before trying them. I’m in no hurry to drink this either (especially since it’s winter), but I’m curious if anyone tried decanting this to see if it helps dissipate the butterscotch notes?
We had it open in the bottle for about a hour and after nothing changed we tossed it into the decanter. 2-3 hours in it didn’t change much. Still low/no acidity and still flabby. I’ve had Rhys’ other chards and they were nothing like that. Unfortunate.
