Early Mountain - Quaker Run Chardonnay 2018

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Producer	Early Mountain
Country	United States
Region	Virginia
Subregion	Shenandoah Valley
Varietal	Chardonnay
Vintage	2018
Sku	18850
Size	750ml

 

Winemaker Note:  2019 is our fifth vintage of this wine, made from the oldest Chardonnay vines at our Quaker Run vineyard (planted in 1999). While it would be easy to call this wine our “Reserve” Chardonnay, that doesn’t get to the heart of what we are doing with the wine. Since we’ve realized this is a special block, we took the approach that we would bottle it separately, from pruning on through fermentation. This meant precision in the vineyard and patience in the cellar. Because of the reliance on ambient yeast for the fermentation, and the ripeness of the grapes, the wine fermented for three months and continued to rest on its lees until January of 2021, when it was bottled. 

Wine Description:   This wine is marked by its long fermentation and extended lees contact with the sort of yeast/bread character you might expect from Champagne and the roundness and texture that you might expect from a full malo Chardonnay, though the wine retains acidity even with full ripeness, especially in a vintage like 2019, where ripeness and acidity were hallmarks of the white wines. This wine has density and extract while remaining nimble and detailed, something we think is specific to this small block of Chardonnay planted on the side of a mountain in 1999.