Chardonnay Trout Gulch Vineyard, Kutch 2021

13% alcohol. Nine-barrel blend from a vineyard at 600 feet planted in 1977. Really aromatic with notes of pineapple, pear and lemon as well as some spice and nuts, with some mandarin, too. The palate is so vivid, lively and tangy, showing a good concentration of lemon and orange peel notes, with a hint of hazelnut and some sweet spicy frills, finishing with some sweet baked lemon notes. There’s almost a bit of musqué grapey quality here.

The 2021 Trout Gulch Vineyard from Kutch Wines is also made from quite old vines, with this vineyard having been planted in 1977. The wine is again raised in twenty percent new oak and
fermented with indigenous yeasts. The beautiful bouquet is already a touch more expressive than the lovely Sonoma Coast bottling, offering up scents of apple, pear, almond, a hint of crème
pâtissière, a gorgeous base of stony soil, orange zest, honeysuckle and vanillin oak. On the palate the wine is pure, full-bodied, focused and complex, with a superb core of fruit, excellent mineral drive and cut, bouncy acids and a very long, energetic and seamlessly balanced finish. This too comes in at an even thirteen percent in 2021 and is a simply stunning bottle of chardonnay! It is already delicious to drink, but it is still a puppy and will be even more dazzling if given four or five years’ worth of bottle age before having at it in earnest. 2023-2045.