BLUE BOOK TASTE PROFILE

Appellation: Arroyo Seco
Varietal: Chardonnay


TASTE BENCHMARKS
  Profile #1
Profile #2
Appearance Straw-Gold Dense green-gold.
Aroma Intense ripe nectarine, restrained oak. Complex aromas reminiscent of Meursault: custard, lemon oil, and cashew.
Flavor Like its famous rieslings, Arroyo Seco offers generous, likeable wines packed with flavors of stone fruit and sometimes butter. There is a characteristic guava bittersweet tang in the finish which saves the mouth from cloying and leaves a wonderful appetizing impression. Full, structured and complex with ample oak and integrated flavors with nevertheless have the native nectarine at their core.
Balance Crisp acidity, balancing a rich natural sweetness. Good acid balanced but considerable body and graceful minerality.
PRODUCTION CORRELATIONS
Oenological Stainless steel or neutral barrel fermentations, with or without malolactic butteriness, but preserving the frank ripe nectarine aromas. Aged 6 to 9 months prior to bottling. May be bottled with slight residual sugar. A more serious wine style which integrates the native nectarine into a stylized, sophisticated work through extensive yeast lees stirring (batonage), as much as eighteen months.
Viticultural Capable of large scale, economical precision viticulture similar to the factory farms of the Monterey AVA, resulting in rich wines which are quite affordable. Capable of large scale, economical precision viticulture similar to the factory farms of the Monterey AVA, resulting in rich wines which are quite affordable.
Terroir Although this appellation has sunken river bed to its west which shelters vines from wind, this is reserved for red wines, and chardonnay is grown mostly on the exposed alluvial fan to the east, owing its richness, ripeness and natural sweetness to its distance from the Pacific and its rocky subsoils. Although this appellation has sunken river bed to its west which shelters vines from wind, this is reserved for red wines, and chardonnay is grown mostly on the exposed alluvial fan to the east, owing its richness, ripeness and natural sweetness to its distance from the Pacific and its rocky subsoils.