Welcome back SommSelect Editorial Director David Lynch, with a few words about this wine and California Chardonnay culture shock:
When I worked as a sommelier in New York City, we always knew the customers from San Francisco—because they tended to announce themselves within five minutes of sitting down. They wore their Bay Area bona fides as a wine-knowledge badge of honor, and when I later moved out to San Francisco to take a job at Quince, I think there were some who thought I’d bring a bunch of anti-California, Eurocentric prejudices with me. And truthfully, I did. But then I was turned on to producers like Duncan Arnot Meyers and Nathan Roberts at Arnot-Roberts—next-generation, indie-rocker types with a “vineyard-first” mentality and a sensibility informed by travel and tasting in the great Old World wine regions. I remember being interviewed by a local magazine when Quince opened and the big takeaway was how much I was loving California Chardonnay! Whaa? How could that be? Snobby New Yorker embraces the ultimate Cougar Wine? Well, yes. But to put a finer point on it, what I had embraced (and still embrace, wholeheartedly) was a style of Chardonnay pretty far removed from the “big and buttery” stereotype that still dominates most discussions of California whites. What I found was an amazing amount of brightness, balance, well-modulated (or non-existent) oak, and nuance—all qualities found in this 2014 Watson Ranch Chardonnay from Arnot-Roberts. I think of this as “new-generation” Chardonnay, one that is all about precision and purity over power. It’s a wine that defies the stereotypes, and I’d proudly put it in front of the most intractable Francophile. In short: You need to try it!
And, to clarify: I’m not saying this wine is good because it tastes like white Burgundy. This wine’s scale and style are reminiscent of white Burgundy, but it is unmistakably Californian as well. We felt the same about Arnot-Roberts’ Sonoma Coast Syrah a while back; as tempting (and easy) as it is to say, “It tastes like an Old World wine,” it doesn’t really do either justice. The Watson Ranch Chardonnay, like the Syrah before it, carves its own path—displaying a deep, sunny core of saturated fruit supported by cool-climate acidity and a mineral grip lent by a rare outcropping of limestone in Napa.
The Watson Ranch vineyard is on a steep hillside overlooking the San Pablo Bay, at the southernmost end of the Napa Valley. It was planted in 1993 on marine deposits over limestone, the latter a relatively rare find in California and a key factor in preserving this wine’s electric acidity. For Arnot-Roberts, this exposed, wind-whipped vineyard hits all the right notes—it’s organically farmed, and also dry-farmed (i.e. not irrigated), and truly showcases the cooling effect of the San Pablo Bay on Napa/Carneros.
And as we’ve noted before, the Arnot-Roberts partnership is as “made in California” as it gets: Duncan and Nathan grew up together in Napa. Their ties to the wine business were many—Nathan’s father founded a cooperage and his mom was a longtime chef at Robert Mondavi winery; Duncan’s father was a Napa attorney with many wine-industry friends—and after college Duncan went the ‘cellar rat’ route, eventually becoming assistant winemaker at Pax Wine Cellars, while Nathan kept making barrels. They founded their own label in 2001 and have kept the operation resolutely artisanal. Even after a recent growth spurt, their annual production lingers around 5,000 cases, spread across a dizzying array of unique bottlings. They work with more than 20 unique vineyards scattered throughout California, so none of these single-vineyard bottlings are produced in great quantities. Much to our chagrin, most of their releases are snapped up by restaurants before we can get a bid in!
We’re lucky to have a nice supply of the 2014 Watson Ranch Chardonnay to share with you, and it’s a knockout. It was “whole-cluster pressed” into stainless steel tanks and fermented using ambient yeasts before being transferred to neutral French oak barrels for 7 months of aging. In the glass it is a vibrant yellow-gold with hints of straw and green at the rim, while the aromatics mix some of the lime skin and crushed stone notes of Burgundy with the yellow apple, pear, and white peach ripeness of California. What you get in this wine is a succulent, mouth-coating, medium-bodied blast of fruit carried on raft of crisp, citrusy acidity. There’s a touch of creaminess to the texture, but it is ultimately a vibrant, mouth-watering style of Chardonnay that finishes with a bright, floral flourish. You will really appreciate the energy of this wine—especially if you’re still carrying around some outdated preconceptions of this grape in California. Serve this at around 50 degrees in large Burgundy stems to really bring out its aromatic high notes, and pair it with something that’ll put its acid to work; I’m going to cook
this buttery Sole Meunière for my favorite cougar—my wife—and toast our eighth year on the Best Coast. Cheers!
— David Lynch
