Wine News  

October/November 2005
Pioneer Chard Producer Releases 50th Vintage

St. Helena, Calif. - Just saying no to oak and lamolactic fermentaion has served Stony Hill Vineyard quite well. So well, in fact, that the release of the 2002 Napa Valley Chardonnay ($30) represents the 50th anniversary of the initial unoaked, non-malo Chard made with precious Spring Mountain fruit in 1952 (the label, pictured above, is a reproduction of the first one.) As hard as it may be to believe, when founders Fred and Eleanor McCrea set out to plant chardonnay on what was a 160-acre goat ranch in 1947, there were only about 200 acres of the now-ubiquitous white grape in all of the Golden State. Never made in the overblown New World style, Stony Hill Chardonnays deliver instead elegantly defined fruit and food-caressing minerality.  - TMW