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 June 15, 2006
Narsai David with KCBS Food News
California’s Stony Hill Chardonnay is remarkable! I’m Narsai David to say I frankly have never seen a white wine that ages as beautifully as the Stony Hill Chardonnay. It’s a tiny winery, tiny vineyard way up in the Napa Valley hills at the northwest end of the valley with such a low yield and small production that there’s just concentration in those grapes.
At a dinner the other night we had a bottle of the 1981, 25-year-old Stony Hill Chardonnay, elegant, supple, soft, well-balanced and yes, it did show some age, but that really added to the excitement and complexity of the wine. Now this came from the cellar of a friend whose cellar is not even refrigerated. It’s underground but it’s not as though this had any exotic or special treatment. This is just in the regular cellar underground. We also had a bottle of the 1978 Stony Hill Chardonnay. It had a little bit deeper color so that it was definitely a little bit oxidized. But it was remarkable how tasty it was on the palate. A little bit toasty. I would say it compared to what most 10 year-old Chardonnays would be like. So if you’re looking for something to lay down and get some long age and develop complexity in a Chardonnay, this was really fascinating from Stony Hill.
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