Pacific Ridge Vineyards 2005 Chardonnay - Santa Maria Valley AVA Only 171 cases produced! This featured wine is no longer available for purchase on Indie Winemakers. Join our Mailing List (see at left) to be notified when a new featured wine is offered.

Indie Winemakers' Tasting Notes

Our mission is to provide unbiased opinions of the wine being offered. These notes come from up to 10 guests who tasted this wine in a blind tasting format (wine is concealed so their identity is unknown). Why this format? Tasting blind completely throws out any hype associated with a certain winery, style, price point, etc; it forces the taster to accept what is in the glass without any predetermined notions. Our guests utilize Robert Parker's Glossary of Wine Terms for their comments for consistency purposes. In addition, we utilize the wine aroma wheel to enhance one’s ability to describe the complexity of wine flavor. Notes are posted on this wine during the tasting to ensure they accurately reflect the impressions.

Tasting Notes

Technical Notes - Pacific Ridge Vineyards 2005 Chardonnay - Santa Maria Valley AVA

Only 171 cases of this 100% Chardonnay were produced. This chardonnay was fermented separately, and later blended to produce a wonderfully complex wine. A proportion of this blend was barrel fermented, and aged in a mix of neutral and newer French oak for 11 months. Another portion of the wine was fermented and aged in stainless a stainless steel tank. The wine was handled with minimal processing to retain the most possible flavor and reflect the terroir of the vineyards. It was not heat or cold stabilized so may be a bit delicate (don’t refrigerate for long periods but store at proper white wine cellar temperature). No fining was done but a filtration was performed before bottling.

About the Vineyards

This wine was produced with Chardonnay from two premiere vineyards of the Santa Maria Valley. They are in relatively cool locations near the Pacific, typically with a breeze from the ocean. This moderates the temperatures and optimizes the ripening season for varietals such as Chardonnay. It has been twelve years since our first Chardonnay was produced from these vineyards. We have often done single vineyard versions, but these two vineyards complemented each other so well in 2005 that a blend of the two lots was the best choice.

About the Vintage

An excellent harvest year, 2005 is famous in much of California for the high quality and yields. For our Chardonnay, the 2005 harvest presented a bit of a challenge that actually resulted in more evenly developed fruit. Cool temperatures in the early part of the season kept acid levels high, so a longer hang time was required for the pH to rise. The temperatures did allow a slow enough rise that although sugar levels rose, the fruit was balanced at harvest, with wonderful maturity of flavor. A higher than usual alcohol level resulted, which has very nicely matched with the accentuated structure and complexity of the fruit from this harvest.

Winemaker's tasting notes

Truly a crowd pleaser, this is my favorite Chardonnay. It’s a beautiful example of Santa Barbara Chardonnay, with a wonderful light gold color and a nose of green apple and pear. Soft and full, this is an integrated wine with great fruit up front, and a lightness through the mid palate leading to pleasant acidity, a splash of very lightly toasted oak with a hint of vanilla and caramel carrying you through a long finish.