Storrs Winery

Pamela Storrs has been making fine Chardonnay from the Santa Cruz Mountains for well over a decade. I still have a bottle of the 1994 Christine Vineyard Chardonnay on my fireplace mantle. Unfortunately, it’s empty: long ago savored and enjoyed and then turned into an oil lantern candle as was the popular thing to do back then.

This south-facing vineyard, located in a sunny spot called Pleasant Valley at the southern end of the Santa Cruz Mountains appellation near Mount Madonna, is trained to a modified double-Geneva curtain trellising system which exposes the fruit to maximum mountain sunshine. Christie Vineyard is hand-farmed, marine-influenced and consistently produces bright clean fruit that always has a great range of flavors, from citrus to tropical.

This version has delicate aromas of tangerines and blood orange, with a bit of crisp apple and pear, and a teasing hint of ripe pineapple. There is also a pleasant bit of honeysuckle, and something reminiscent of a fine perfume, perhaps White Linen. On the palate, the bright lemon-lime and pineapple dance delightfully through the mid-palate, yielding to flavors of Seckel pears and crisp-sweet juicy apples with funky skins: the kind like you only find at a roadside stand in the middle of nowhere, and the kind that make the best apples pies. Everything about this wine says Mountains! The acidity is divine and the wine perfectly crisp and refreshing from start to finish. This is one of those wines that is simply perfect all by itself, accompanied, perhaps, by your favorite sweater, a warm late autumn afternoon with a bit of chill in the breeze, and perhaps the tantalizing aromas of a fresh apple and pear crisp baking in the background.

(Alc: 14.5%, Retail: $21)

Reviewed February 2, 2007 by Laura Ness.