Michaud Vineyard and Winery

At the price, this wine is a steal for the fact that there are no – none– Chardonnays from California presently on the market from the 1998 vintage. That’s because there are scant few Chardonnays that are as age-worthy as Michael Michaud’s. What’s more, the wine is spectacular.

We at APPELLATION AMERICA were thrilled after blind-tasting a half-dozen of Michaud Vineyard Chardonnays currently on the market. We were excited because all the wines show a consistent thread of place, the colors are vibrant, they are elegant and restrained at the same time, and they are simply wonderful. What a revelation to taste wines that are clean and stylish all at once.

This 9-year-old white wine is showing some age. Resist the temptation, however, to allow the oxidized sherry-like aromas put you off. For my taste, it adds a patina of character and interest. Because in the end, you’ll discover a wine with fresh, very much alive fruit and a wine with perfect balance. There’s some honey qualities, too, not unlike aged Chablis. There are also some vanilla notes and a definitive bit of minerality from the limestone and granite soils in Michaud’s 1,500-foot Chalone AVA vineyard. Additionally, the wine has another six years of good life left to it.

The wine was fermented for 10 ½ months in French barrels, a third of which was new. The pH is a very low 3.34, which tells you that the acidity is much a part of the whole. The alcohol is 14.25 percent although the grapes were picked at 23.4 Brix (measure of sugar), low by California standards. There were 1,650 cases produced.

NOTE: This library release wine is available as part of an exciting six vintage vertical tasting of Michaud Chardonnays (98, 00, 01, 02, 03, 04).
>>Click here to find out how to order.

Reviewed August 22, 2007 by Alan Goldfarb.