TN: 1984 Hanzell Chardonnay

[Roy Hersh]

As an official Hanzell fanatic, what can I say ... this was truly a great experience. I hand carried this throughout the early days of my trip to Portugal during the harvest this year and popped the cork while visiting Quinta do Crasto, with the Roquette family and our friends on Tour.

The Zellerbach famlly was either the first or one of the very first to plant Pinot Noir grapes in CA, if not the entire USA, circa 1952 or 3. They wanted to emulate Burgundy and did so with their White Burg-like Chardonnay style as well.

This was an ex-cellars bottling. Fill level was mid-neck and the color was hard to discern as we were having dinner outdoors overlooking the Douro. This was a really fine bottle, my other time trying it was two and a half years ago during the Seattle vertical tasting of Hanzell Chards and Pinots at Union (Restaurant) which was infected by TCA.

Fortunately, this showed really nicely with pineapple and dried apricot notes and an intense undertone of honeysuckle. Although I was loving the intricate aromatics, it was far better in the mouth and could have passed for a teenage Meursault.

The seamless interplay between the acidity with the ripe and generous layers of stone fruits, apple butter and minerality was fabulous. It is really hard to believe but this was seemingly still quite youthful given its age.

At their best, Hanzell's Chards just improve like a fine tuned older Chablis. Everyone was pretty impressed that CA made Chardonnay that could not only be this delicious at 25, but would appear to have plenty of legs for another 5-10 solid years of drinking pleasure.

It made up for the last bottle, in spades! 93+ points and about as good a CA Chard as I have had all year. Had the finish been longer (just medium in length) my score would have been a point or two higher putting this near the top of my CA Chard experience.