Mount Eden Vineyards

Tasting Notes

Release Date: Spring 2003

I’ve been writing about this wine for over twenty years so I thought I would forgo the usual and let the critics have their say:

It has been our long-held conviction that the Chardonnays produced by Mount Eden Vineyards, in the Santa Cruz Mountains town of Saratoga, are consistently among the finest produced anywhere in the New World. The Underground Wine Journal

Mount Eden Vineyards Chardonnay Popular perception: A legendary producer of Chardonnay whose wines are frightfully difficult to find. Insider thinking: Earthy, buttery, complex Chardonnays are almost impossible to distinguish from some of France’s grand cru white burgundies have established Mount Eden as one of the most cherished names in Chardonnay land. Robert Parker Jr’s The Wine Advocate

Like the Montelena cabernet, the Mount Eden chardonnay was one of the first great examples of its variety made in California. While other entrants have garnered the lion’s share of press coverage in recent years, Mount Eden’s wine – and Montelena’s -have quietly evolved, and remain among the most satisfying examples of their respective varieties. Steve Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar

"You know how I am -- I don't like to make declarations," Kramer said with a dry smile. "But if you press me, I would concede that Mount Eden estate Chardonnay is the single finest Chardonnay made in California. This has a great nose: minerally and stony, liquid rocks. It has a long finish and a great mid-palate, where you find an incredible density." Matt Kramer, California Wine Experience 2002

2000 is a delicious chardonnay year, sure to age for a decade or more.

94 points Robert Parker Jr’s The Wine Advocate - December 2003

A terrific example of a great California Chardonnay, the 2000 Chardonnay Estate emerges from a high altitude mountain vineyard. It exhibits notes of honeysuckle and buttered tropical fruits (particularity pineapples and passion fruit) interwoven with a striking minerality, good acidity, tremendous intensity, and impressive richness. The wines acidity and structure have more in common with a top Burgundy grand cru than most California Chardonnays. This is a brilliantly executed, full-throttle effort that builds incrementally in the mouth. It should drink well for a decade (one of California’s longest lived Chardonnays)

92 points Wine Enthusiast Magazine - May 2004

Big Extracted, rich and bold, a break with the old style that emphasized leanness and acidity for aging. This beauty will satisfy fans of ripe tropical fruit and lots of oak, made in an accessible style.

91 (+) points Stephen Tanzer’s International Wine Cellar - July/August 2004

Green-tinged pale copper-gold color. Restrained aromas of lemon, baking spices, oak char and minerals. Penetrating and complex, with soil-inflected flavors of lemon, stone fruits, smoke, earth, flowers and nuts. Still quite tightly wound and in need of at least a few years of further aging. Finished long and subtle. With extended aeration, this showed a considerably more glycerol texture, notes of ginger and butterscotch, and amore pronounced minerality.