Artesa Carneros Estate Vineyard Chardonnay 2016
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Winemaker Notes
Our winemaking team produces individual wine components, selected within each block of our Estate Vineyard, based on their specific flavor and chemistry. These lots are fermented and aged individually, for a period of about nine months. Then our winemaker, Ana Diogo-Draper, selects the higher quality components, which will become part of the final Estate Vineyard Chardonnay presenting you with a blend that truly reflects the fruit from our estate. When blended, each component offers specific aroma and flavor characteristics that develop the distinct style of the final blend.
The 2016 vintage displays an intense aromatic intricacy and subtle notes of vanilla and honeysuckle. On the palate, the wine displays a well-balanced mouthfeel, with lingering flavors of Asian pear and meyer lemon. It flaunts a unique minerality and a vibrant acidity that characterizes this beautiful corner of Los Carneros, Napa Valley.
Professional Ratings
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Wine & Spirits
Catalan-based Cordoníu Raventós started this project in Carneros 25 years ago, and this is the highest score we’ve yet awarded to an Artesa wine. It’s made by Portuguese-born Ana Diogo Draper, who joined Artesa in 2013, becoming director of winemaking in 2015. It’s as targeted as a bee sting, with scents of wildflower honey and beeswax. The texture has some apple-butter richness, but the clarity and freshness of the fruit keeps it bouncy, clean enough to serve with a grilled octopus salad, and substantial enough to take on buttermilk-fried chicken.
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Tasting Panel
Polished and sumptuous with refined notes of ripe pear and subtle toasty oak; silky with fine balance and considerable finesse courtesy of Artesa Director of Winemaking Ana Diogo Draper
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Wine Enthusiast
This is a full-bodied, fleshy and oaky white, intense in flavor and grippy power. It delivers tones of anise and lavender amidst succulent layers of white nectarine and green apple.
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Wine Spectator
Fruity and rich, with powerfully spiced flavors of apple pastry, pear and ripe citrus that are stitched together by fresh acidity. Bright and buttery on the finish. Drink now through 2021.
Other Vintages
2018-
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Artesa (ahr TESS uh) means "craftsman" and connotes "handcrafted" in Catalan, language of Barcelona and their owner, Group Raventós-Codorníu –Spain's oldest winemaking family, one of the world's oldest wineries, owner of 14 wineries and exporting to over 100 countries–.
In 1991 , this family ventured to a new world: a sea-facing hillside in the Napa Valley, with rocky soils and a favorable coastal climate. Artesa's architecturally-acclaimed facility opened then, named as Codorniu Napa, and dedicated solely to méthode champenoise sparkling wine production.
The arrival of a world-class winemaker and a $10 million conversión shifted their focus dramatically in 1997. The winery reopened in 1999 with the inaugural release of ultra-premium, estate grown, artesan still wines.
While Artesa is a relative newcomer to Napa, it has received a rich heritage of five centuries of history with 15 generations of a remarkable winemaking family, which are put now at the service of their mission: crafting distinctive wines and sharing them with joy.
One of the most popular and versatile white wine grapes, Chardonnay offers a wide range of flavors and styles depending on where it is grown and how it is made. While it tends to flourish in most environments, Chardonnay from its Burgundian homeland produces some of the most remarkable and longest lived examples. California produces both oaky, buttery styles and leaner, European-inspired wines. Somm Secret—The Burgundian subregion of Chablis, while typically using older oak barrels, produces a bright style similar to the unoaked style. Anyone who doesn't like oaky Chardonnay would likely enjoy Chablis.
Known for elegant wines that combine power and finesse, Carneros is set in the rolling hills that straddle the southernmost parts of both Sonoma and Napa counties. The cooling winds from the abutting San Pablo Bay, combined with lots of midday California sunshine, create an ideal environment for producing wines with a perfect balance of crisp acidity and well-ripened fruit.
This cooler pocket of California lends itself to growing Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah. Carneros is an important source of sparkling wines made in the style of Champagne as well.