Sill Family Vineyards très Chardonnay 2017
Sill Family Vineyards is a family-owned and operated exquisite boutique winery with estate vineyards producing ultra-premium, very limited production, carefully hand-crafted wines. As a Court of Master Sommelier, Winemaker Igor Sill became passionate about Bordeaux wines after being introduced to Château Margaux, Château Latour, Château Haut-Brion and Château Lafite Rothschild in the late 1970s by H. Lyman Emerson, a renaissance gentleman and noted fine wine collector.
Sill owns and operates two distinctive vineyards, Atlas Peak Mountain vineyard located on a plateau 1,650 feet above sea level, and St. Helena terraced vineyard. The St. Helena vineyard, a half-acre vineyard, planted by famed vineyard manager, Michael Nunez in 2009 with exceptional Cabernet Sauvignon vines carefully chosen for compatibility with the vineyard’s terroir, located on the east side of the Silverado Trail, just a mile or so north of the village town of St. Helena.
Unfortunately, the Atlas Peak fires of Oct 2017 destroyed their Winery and it’s not yet back open to the public. Good news however, you may purchase wines direct from their website, and if you are lucky enough, find them in a few fine restaurants. Better yet, join their Wine Club, become a member, and you can get a tasting by appointment, can’t get any better than that.
I will discuss 4 of their fabulous wines, the first today, so check back with SippingFineWine soon for the other 3!
Tasting the 2017 très CHARDONNAY from the Sonoma Coast
To begin, this was one of the most elegant Chardonnays I have tasted, and I had to look at the label to see if it really came from CA. In the future, I will conduct a blind tasting, with a few wine friends, putting the Sill against a $135 Puligny-Montrachet. I am predicting Sill will be hands-down winner at half the price…Stay tuned!
This hand-crafted Chardonnay is barrel fermented and aged in mostly French oak (guessing a small amount of new oak, if any, as oak is not dominating the wine as most CA Chardonnays do) ending with some time in steel tanks which provides an elegant freshness to the wine. The terroir for this Chardonnay is perfect, cool wind swept Sonoma Coast Petaluma Gap, with clay like volcanic soils. Great depth of gentle fruit aromas with floral and a mineral character. On the palate layers of subtle extraordinary fruit, apricot and poached pear with spiced lemon and a touch of light almond toast, luxurious yet has a powerful savory freshness. Very well balanced, layered with elegance and persistent length that ends with a graceful minerality. Truly outstanding, will continue to improve over the next decade if you are disciplined enough to cellar a few bottles, not me, this is gorgeous now! Grab a few bottles before they are gone! Tasting Sample!
Cheers!