One of My TOP Wines last year, How is it in a BLIND TASTING???

In the fall of last year, I was fortunate enough to go to Chile for the very first time. And there was a wine, a white wine there. I was super impressed with Chardonnay based in Limari. This is the New Appalachian. That's about relatively New Appalachian. It's about 450 miles north of Santiago. So we're talking less than 300 miles. It borders the Pacific Ocean and then the Atacama Desert. In a way, it really reminds me of Santa Barbara County. It's a cool climate region. Like in Santa Barbara County, it's in the Northern Hemisphere, but it's pretty far south. So you wouldn't expect it to be cooler. When I've been in Santa Barbara in August before, I needed a jumper both in the morning and in the evening. Chile obviously is in the Southern Hemisphere. So the more north you go, the closer you're gonna be to the equator. However, because of those Pacific Ocean breezes, the region is a cool climate region. It's known for elegant Chardonnays, Pinot Noirs, Sauvignon Blancs and Syrahs. There's a lot of old limestone there, a lot of old seafloor beds. So it's said that these wines have this beautiful chalkiness but I guess we'll see in this blind tasting. But the real reason I was so impressed with this wine is because I know Chile as a great red wine country. Most of the production in Chile is actually red wines. This Chardonnay was the first great white wine I think I've had from Chile. It even made my list of my most memorable wines of the year that I release every year in January. I'll link that in the description box. However, there's a difference between tasting a wine there on site and then tasting it back at home. You'll see that a lot. People go on holiday, they have this wine. It's amazing, they come back home, they have the same wine and it just doesn't taste the same because you're home now, you're not at the place. We'll see how it shapes up here today. I have four different Chardonnays from the West Coast of America. Most of them from cooler climates, although I stuck a Napa in there just because I had one handy. I wanna see how this stacks up. And a couple of these are from some of my favorite regions on the West Coast of America. Let's get into the blind tasting. If you see my new videos, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna taste through and blind taste everything. And then during the reveal, I will edit in my tasting notes so it makes it a little bit easier for you to follow. Once again, I Coravin these, bagged them up, taped them up and then had somebody mix them up for me. I ran out of tall bags and what was left in the supermarket would be short ones, that's why I had to tape them up so I can't see over and see the bottles. All these are samples. Producers, importers had no say in what I'm gonna produce or the tasting. So let's get started. I said I was gonna reveal one by one, but wine number one here was one of the most impressive white wines I think I've tasted on this channel. So I think I'm gonna go in reverse or we will see, it was so good it messed up my speech. We're gonna go from five down to one, but I'll still make it linear. Start with five, just tasted. Here's my full tasting note. Five has got a lot of flintiness. The most flinty out of all of these, maybe besides one, flinty, lemony, white pepper, even could be like a riper, Reinhessen, Riesling-esque type of flavor. A little bit of white flower. Man, the lemony acidity here is great. The flinty, these are great wines. This, someone like me absolutely loves. I love the acid here. Man, this is complex. Let's go to the reveal. High acid, baby. Acid freaks like me, absolutely loving it. 93 points, delicious. I love the flintiness out of it. Let's see what it is here and let's see where it's from. No way, no way. This is the Frank Family Vineyards from Carneros, Napa Valley Chardonnay, 2024. This comes in at 39 bucks. They have changed their style completely because I used to think of Frank Family Vineyards as oaky, overly oaky. I know a lot of producers are trying to dial back and throttle back. This is how it showed blind. 39 bucks, I think this is excellent. This is readily available. I am shocked because I thought that a different one was this Napa. This showed, and Carneros is a cooler, that's shocking to me. Carneros is split between Napa and Sonoma County. It's the cool area where they get the Chardonnay, the base wines for sparkling wine. But I am shocked. This is good, 93 points. Sometimes I like to poo-poo on these wines. Maybe they're changing the style completely, but that's good. That is a recommend. 39 bucks, I think it's one of the more affordable Chardonnays in this bunch. If any of you watch the channel, if you tasted the latest vintages of Frank Family, the Chardonnay, please let me know if you've noticed the difference in style change too. It's not a winery that I follow vintage after vintage. The world of wine is huge, so you can't follow everybody, every region all the time. I'm shocked. But that's the power of blind tasting. Let's move on to number four. The one that I talked about was the Warm Blanket. You'll see the full tasting now. Four is just more balanced. Four just feels like this nice blanket on a cold day. It's just like a warm hug. Lemon, white apricot. Again, that kiss of vanilla, but not too much like vanilla essence, just a little bit, just a touch. One, three, four are all minerally, which I like. Whoa, here's the thing. Remember I said three was more bright fruit? Four is like steely acidity. It's almost like Riesling-esque acidity, which just wipes your palate clean, which in essence, Chardonnay is a high acid grape and a pretty neutral variety. That's why winemakers try to duplicate all over the world because it's like an empty canvas. You can really play with it. I like my descriptor when I opened it up. It reminded me of a warm blanket on a cold day. It's a little bit cooler here in the Midwest where I am today. I think it's totally okay to describe wines like that. You don't have to describe wine like you see pros do. If a wine smells like puppy dogs to you, it smells like puppy dogs. If it feels like a warm blanket, it feels like a warm blanket. Sharp, acid-driven, I'm liking it. I love Chardonnay. So I love this tasting for, I love Chardonnay. Love the balance here. This just made me feel good. Just tasting this made me feel really good. 93 plus points. 93 plus. From one of my favorite regions, not only in California, not only in America, but in the world, Santa Barbara County, this is the Hilt Estate Chardonnay, 2023. Comes in at 56 bucks. The Hilt is owned by the same person who owns Screaming Eagle. He also owns the Denver Nuggets, the LA Rams, I think the Avalanche, even an EPL team, the Cronky family, a lot of money. The Hilt, their wines used to be too big. I've noticed in the recent vintages, I'm tasting them, they're elegant. This is exceptional. Comes in at 13% alcohol like the Frank family. The Frank family came in at 14.4 and I didn't even feel it. This comes at 13. This is elegant, pretty darn good. Exceptional. I'm still shocked by the Frank family that's not open. But 93 plus, Santa Barbara County, showing strong. I mean, very, very good wine. Very good. Santa Barbara County, I said, is the region in California that parallels Lemari, which I talked about earlier. Santa Barbara County, where the film Sideways took place. I love you have the transverse range, so it sucks in all the cool air from the Pacific Ocean. I see, this is from Santa Rita Hills is the appellation. Santa Rita Hills is the closest to the Pacific Ocean. So it's a real cool region, real elegant Pinot Noirs. Syrah even tasted some Grenache out of there. The Chardonnay is there's excellent. Santa Barbara County and Sideways painted is the perfect region for Pinot Noir. I personally think that Chardonnay and Syrah, those are the things that get me excited coming out of that region. I think that's an excellent representation of Santa Rita Hills. Excellent wine. If you like this content, I would like you to consider becoming a channel member. I have several tiers, but in the Grand Reserve tier, I have a monthly live hangout tasting where we talk, shop, share wines. It's really difficult to find family and friends that are into wine like you and I are, and that's what this community is. There are perks for other members too, and it supports the work I do here. So thank you. Let's move on to wine number three. I thought tasting this, it tasted like Chardonnays. I'd tasted out of this region, here's the full tasting note. I am using the Josefine in Austrian. I guess we would say Josefine in English. Number three glass, mostly for red wines or big whites. One of the viewers of the channel, Ken, thanks a lot, had connections with them, wanted me to taste them, so I had them send me some samples. Cool glass, Curtis Joseph Zolto. Yes, one of the members of the Zolto family designed this glass, and I like it so far. Let's see what three is like. Three, another cool weather type play, but it's still got some ripeness to it. The lemon comes out first. There's a certain shockiness here, a little bit of white Asian pear minerals, a touch of vanilla clove, like one in three just have that perfect kiss of oak, not too much. Oddly enough, I don't like overtly oaky flavors in my red wines, but I don't mind them in whites, because I like white Burgundy. All right, let's taste it. This is excellent. Like I said, I knew what these wines were beforehand. I just had somebody mix them up for me. I do have an Oregon Chardonnay in here, spoiler alert, and this really reminds me of Oregon, where it smells so acidic and mineral-driven on the nose, but on the palate, the fruit is really bright. I get pineapple flavors, I get mineral notes. The palate really spreads out. This is super good, super good, excellent wine. 94 points, second highest scored wine in this bunch. Let's see what it is. I love the flintiness, and then the ripe fruit in the back end. 94 points. I call it my tasting note, and I'd never tasted this wine before. This is the Grand Moran Chardonnay from Yamahil Carlton in the Willamette Valley, 2023. This comes in at 50 bucks, 12.9% alcohol. Super low, but have... I took an Oregon Chardonnay, a Lingua Franca, to an international competition I judge at. There are also some of my fellow jurors there are winemakers. One's a pretty famous winemaker in Eastern Europe, and she tasted the Chardonnay, and she teared up, and she said, I want to move to Oregon and make Chardonnay and make wine there, and I see why. I love the flintiness and everything up front, and then I love just that bright fruit. I have a friend that lives out in Oregon, and she knows her wine. She said that she thought the wines were solid, but I thought this was excellent. Christy, Christy's Wine Traveler, you're out there. I think this is excellent. I'm gonna be, at the time of shooting this, I'm gonna be in Oregon a few weeks later. I'm super excited. That was fantastic, and I can't believe it can be 12.9% alcohol, but still have all that ripeness. That's why I love Oregon Chardonnay. I do think in the coming decades that Oregon will be known more for Chardonnay than Pinot Noir, at least in the hardcore insider circle. That's what I think, because I am so high on Chardonnay out of Oregon. Okay, so we're coming down to the last two. These last two, I have my lowest scored in the bunch and my highest scored wine in the bunch. Let's see. It's very rare that you taste a wine, I told you, on site and then think it's amazing when you taste it at home, but we'll see here. Let's move on to number two. Fuller in body. I thought it was the Napa. Here's my full tasting note. Two smells a little bit riper, okay? Two, whereas one was more white fruits, more like lemon-lime. This goes into more peach-type flavor, although it's not overly done. I do have a Napa in here, just because I wanted to throw it in, and it's a very famous Napa Chardonnay. Just wanted to see how it do. I don't know if it's, it's not obnoxiously oaky. You definitely get the yellow peach flavors. It's like a completely different wine. Yellow peach, this is a touch of oak, just a touch of butteriness, but not too much. It, yeah, it just smells like it's a warmer climate. Let's taste it. This is Fuller in body. Not my style of Chardonnay. I kinda like those leaner, less more mineral-driven Chardonnays. However, I think this is the perfect balance between someone like me that's a wine geek and somebody that likes those big, buttery Chardonnays, because it's not big and buttery and oaky. It's not super lean. It's kind of a nice balance in between. I'm wondering if it's the Napa, if the style changed, because I've known, the Napa in here, I've known it from the past, but it is good. It's really good. We'll see. Perfect balance, I said, between people that like the big, oaky, like buttery Chardonnays, and then someone like me that's like the leaner style. It's in between, not too oaky by any stretch, but it does move towards that side. It's like right in the middle. 92 points, it's the lowest score. All these wines here, I highly recommend, but again, I'm biased because I love Chardonnay. 92 points. I thought it was the Napa. I don't even remember what I have left from California. This is the Roar Rosellas Vineyard Chardonnay from the Santa Lucia Highlands, 2024. This comes in at 65 bucks. I know that this vineyard goes to about the fog line, and I think it sees a little bit more fog, or an hour more of fog than some of their other vineyards. Roar is an excellent producer in the Santa Lucia Highlands. Makes outstanding Syrahs, Pinot Noirs, Grenache, Chardonnays. This is the wine. Like I said, I have a friend, a Swiss friend, lives in Hong Kong. He knows his wine. I've drank some great wines with him, some great wines, and he's always telling me, he said, I hate this movement towards leaner Chardonnay. I want the big, buttery Chardonnay. I would bring him this. It's not big and buttery, but just to pull him over to my side, pull him over to the light side. He's on the dark side still. I'm joking. If you like the big, oaky Chardonnay, it's fine. It doesn't mean you're on the dark side, unless you like Darth Vader. That's good. Let me see the alcohol here, if it is right. Yeah, 14.7%. So it is riper. I'm still surprised the Frank family showed it was so lean. This almost never happens, I told you, or a wine you think is excellent, when you taste it on premise, on site, at the cellar, and when you taste it at home. It almost never happens. And it's things like this, when you're like, oh, you pat yourself on the back. Oh, I trust myself. I trust my palate. Yes, even though if you work in wine professionally, your palate can be off at times, or sometimes you can doubt your taste if things don't show up like you think they should. One of the highest scored white wines on this channel ever, I got ahead of myself. Here's my full tasting. I know after the big Chardonnay boom, I think that was in the 90s, early 2000s, there was like an ABC movement, anything but Chardonnay. I'm bringing back the AAC. I'm all about Chardonnay. One of the greatest grapes in the world, the spiritual home is Burgundy, produces some of the greatest barrel-fermented white wines in the world. All of these white wines, C barrel fermentation, and they're aged for in between nine and 12 months in French oak of varying proportions of new and older French oak. Let's see how they perform. Wine number one here. Mm, I love it. Wine one is everything I like about barrel-fermented Chardonnay. Got this beautiful salinity. Like I literally smell the seawater. It's got this kind of limey, lemony, slatey type of flavor. You get just a touch, a kiss of oak, but not too much. This is the style of nose that I like. Although I know there are people out there that still like the big, buttery Chardonnays, and I know producers are still making more of these linear, these more lean Chardonnays, but some people are wanting still those old, bigger Chardonnays, including some people I know that are collectors. But anyways, this smells great. This is wonderful. Let's give it a taste. I have to blind taste through everything, and I know the problem when you do these tastings all the times, the first wine, if it's the first wine you've tasted today, can taste the best, but this is exceptional. Great texture. Barrel-fermented Chardonnay to me has the sandy texture, lemony acidity, white fruit flavors, long finish, seamless, beautiful. I mean, that's, whatever wine one is, is one of the more impressive white wines I've had thus far this year. That is excellent. I'm not gonna go too crazy with the score yet. I'm gonna taste through everything. I've got a range here, because I don't want to get too exceptionally excited, but that is great. Let's go on to number two. My goodness, that's exceptional. One of the highest scored white wines on the history of this channel, 96 plus points. This is the Amelia Chardonnay, 2023. Made by Conchiturro, this comes in at 53 bucks, 13.5% alcohol. This is a Wine Geeks wine. It's not fruity, it's slaty, it's lean, it's mineral, outstanding. I know all these wines are not cheap. To me, this is worth every penny. I think it's excellent, especially if you like that high acid, mineral-driven style. Conchiturro knows what they're doing. I mean, that's why they're one of the biggest producers in Chile. So tell me, do you love Chardonnay as much as I do? Have you tasted any of these wines before? Do you have that same experience where you feel like the wines are a lot better at the domain on site than they are when you take them home? This is awesome. I'd love to hear. Drop it in the comments below.