2007 Chardonnay Ritchie

(15.3% alcohol and 6.2 g/l acidity; 65% new oak): Bright, healthy yellow with a gold tinge. Less open on the nose than the 2008 but ultimately more complex, offering musky yet youthful scents of fresh peach, apricot, butterscotch and toasty, spicy oak. Wonderfully rich and savory in the mouth, with an almost tactile quality to its spiciness. Quite youthful for its age, still retaining primary flavors of peach and apricot. Subtle underlying minerality provides focus and extends the lightly phenolic finish. Interestingly, Ramey told me he wishes he had picked this fruit at 23 degrees Brix rather than 24.

Bright green-tinged gold. The richest and most opulent of this set of vineyard chardonnays, displaying ripe peach, melon and nectarine scents, along with toasty lees and a hint of star anise. Broad and deeply concentrated but energetic, offering rich orchard fruit flavors that are given spine by subtle minerality. This seamless, expressive wine is already drinking well and finishes with excellent clarity and sappy persistence.

The most structured and backward is the 2007 Chardonnay Ritchie Vineyard, which comes across as slightly tannic. Full-bodied with an earthy, rich minerality, fresh, lively poached pear, honeysuckle, and subtle smoke and tropical fruit notes, this well-delineated Chardonnay reveals laser-like clarity. It will drink well for 5+ years. A multi-tasker, David Ramey’s Healdsburg operation garnered lavish reviews for his Cabernet Sauvignons in issue #186. He also demonstrates a Midas touch with Chardonnay, while continuing to fine tune his Syrah portfolio. In addition, Ramey’s consulting business appears to be growing by leaps and bounds, and he has been a major factor in turning around the quality of a number of wineries. The 2007 Ramey Chardonnays are all strong efforts, including the three generic offerings from the Sonoma Coast, Russian River, and Carneros, and his single vineyard efforts from the Hudson, Hyde, and Ritchie vineyards. The 2008 barrel samples I saw were slightly more down-sized than the 2007s, which is not unexpected. These potentially outstanding wines were displaying fewer differences in style than I might expect. Tel. (707) 433-0870; Fax (707) 433-0871