Stony Hill Celebrates 50th Chardonnay Release
By Mike Dunne -- Bee Food Editor
Published 2:15 am PST Wednesday, March 16, 2005

We're far up steep and woodsy Spring Mountain, looking east across the northern reaches of the Napa Valley. It's a burn day on the valley floor, and plumes of white smoke rise from bonfires of vine cuttings as crews finish their winter pruning.

We're ambling over to the squat and dark barrel room of Stony Hill Vineyard, founded in 1952, one of the first wineries to be built in the Napa Valley following the repeal of Prohibition.

Inside, Mike Chelini, who joined Stony Hill as vineyard foreman in 1971 and has been the winemaker since Fred McCrea's death in 1977, knocks bungs from barrels and siphons samples of the winery's signature wine, chardonnay.

As Chelini releases tastes into glasses, McCrea is asked whether he's gratified to see other chardonnay producers finally come around to the style pioneered by his father.

"Definitely," he says, too distracted by the wine in his glass to elaborate immediately.

The Stony Hill chardonnay currently in release, from the 2002 harvest, is the winery's 50th, a milestone the McCreas are recognizing by resurrecting the wine's original label for this vintage. Other than that, they aren't making a big deal of the anniversary. A certain reserve has distinguished their stewardship on Spring Mountain, and they're sticking to it.

Peter McCrea isn't even gloating as other vintners recognize they've often gone overboard with chardonnay, tarting it up with the enological equivalent of heavy makeup and Botox - malolactic fermentation, aging in new French oak barrels and the like.

Such measures may add complexity and suppleness to chardonnay, but they also tend to fatten the wine, dull its sharp edge and overpower its delicate fruit.

From the outset, the McCreas wouldn't have any of it. They wanted their wines to taste of fruit and place. Other producers now are getting with the program, alerting consumers to their restraint by adding such terms as "unoaked" and "naked" to their chardonnay labels.

"This was the style of California chardonnay in the 1950s," McCrea is saying as he sniffs and sips the sample of the fresh and frisky 2004 that Chelini just has pulled. "Then malolactic fermentation began to be used to get the wine to market sooner. Malolactic fermentation softened the wine and made it more approachable and gave it flavor components that restaurateurs liked. That was the drive behind it."

The first fermentation in winemaking transforms grape juice into wine by converting sugar into alcohol and carbon-dioxide gas. Many wines subsequently go through a second fermentation - malolactic fermentation - to transform sharp malic acid into milder, softer lactic acid, leaving the wines less biting.

Stony Hill's chardonnays customarily are steely without being razory, their sharp edge tamed but not dulled by aging in wood so old it doesn't leave much of an oak imprint on the final wine.

The tangy 2004 we are tasting will spend about a year in barrel and another in bottle before it is ready to release and drink. "It will just barely be ready to sell then," says McCrea, who believes a Stony Hill chardonnay really starts to hit its stride only at 5 years old.

"It takes that long to develop all its complexity, and then it keeps getting better after that. We had a 1982 with dinner the other night - cod seared in sake - and it was delicious."

McCrea doesn't fret about intensified competition if more winemakers eschew malolactic fermentation and new oak, in part because he's aware that Stony Hill chardonnay has a cult following among wine enthusiasts. Nearly two-thirds of each year's batch is sold directly to people on the winery's mailing list, now up to 4,000 people. His father, who worked in advertising, also pioneered that approach to marketing, starting by writing letters to San Francisco pals when he had a new wine available.

To this day, people who want to pick up their wine are sent directions to the property and told it will be waiting for them "on the pool table in the barn at Mike Chelini's house," which is just down the hill from the McCrea residence.

The rest of Stony Hill's wines are distributed largely through restaurants. Only a few wine shops get any Stony Hill releases, including Corti Bros. in Sacramento.

McCrea also knows that his vineyards are so special and rare that few other vintners can emulate his growing conditions. The vines bend in terraces chiseled into the rocky slopes of Spring Mountain, an appellation planted mostly to cabernet sauvignon and other red-wine varieties. The soils are volcanic, the elevation is cool, the drainage is good and the exposure takes advantage of morning sun but shields the vines from more-intense afternoon heat. If they get two tons of fruit to the acre, it's a good vintage.

"It takes incredibly good grapes to make this wine," McCrea says, lifting a glass of the 2004. It's fresh and frisky, the flavor hinting of apple and pear.

Chelini is asked about his stylistic goals. "To share our vineyard," he replies. "They are Chablis-like when young, richer as they age."

"It's balance, balance and balance," McCrea adds. "Nothing dominates these wines. They aren't too high in oak, and the alcohol is around 13 percent."

Stony Hill chardonnays are celebrated for their clarity and crispness, and a mineral component that McCrea attributes to the distinctiveness of the vineyard setting. He likes to call it "flinty," a term often applied to Chablis, the Burgundian white wine also made from chardonnay grapes, the inspiration behind Stony Hill.

"They liked white Burgundy, and that's what they wanted to grow," McCrea says of his parents' aspirations as they began to plant their vineyards. It was a high-risk proposition. In the 1940s, only 200 acres of chardonnay could be found in California. Plant scientists at the University of California, Davis, urged them to cultivate pinot blanc and riesling instead. They did plant some riesling, and a spicy, off-dry version is another high-demand wine in their small lineup.

Despite their limited production and popularity, Stony Hill wines are recognized for their modest prices. The 2002 chardonnay, for one, sells for $30, low by today's Napa Valley standards. "The wines are restrained, so the prices are restrained," says Willinda McCrea, Peter's wife, who began to help Eleanor McCrea in the winery office in 1989 and now runs the estate with her husband, who in 2001 retired as an executive with Chevron.

Stony Hill is a white-wine specialist - the McCreas also make a dry, Alsatian-style gewurztraminer, a light and refreshing tocai friulano and a smoky, caramel-accented proprietary dessert wine, Semillon de Soliel.

Nonetheless, Stony Hill has created buzz in the Napa Valley by replacing 5 acres of chardonnay with cabernet sauvignon and also making a syrah. (The McCreas and Chelini tend a total 45 acres of vines, half of it chardonnay.)

Stony Hill isn't getting into red-wine production, however, McCrea says. They put in the cabernet because the chardonnay vines that were there were infected with Pierce's disease, and because the site seems a good place for cabernet. He hasn't ruled out entirely a commercial cabernet, but for the next several years he plans to sell the grapes to other vintners.

The syrah, from a half-acre vineyard, is an experiment, but even if the McCreas like the results, the wine will be made only for the family, he says.

"We'll never sell this wine," he says, holding up a glass of the syrah, which is bright, sharp and a touch tarry, with a suggestion of chocolate. (Well, he did just sell some of the wine, but it was a benefit for Napa Valley Vintners, sponsors of the annual trade auction Premiere Napa Valley, where five cases of the syrah sold for $4,000.)

Stony Hill, he notes, was founded as a "one generation" winery, meaning it was conceived to support one generation at a time, and that's the way it will stay, small and personal. He and his wife took it over when his mother died in 1991. They have two children, Fred, an investment banker, and Sarah, a brand manager for Starbucks.

Chelini, who has worked with the McCreas for more than three decades, gives no indication he's about to retire. He and his wife reared three children on the estate. "We have 3,000 acres of state park around us, no commute and these views," he says. "It's a good life. It's like a family. We take a lot of pride in what we do."