The 2016 Chardonnay UV-SL Vineyard is powerful and also razor-sharp. Chalk, crushed rocks, mint and citrus peel give the UV-SL its distinctive energetic, focused feel.
Reviews:
- Wine Advocate: The 2016 Chardonnay UV-SL has a very sexy nose of apple pie and apricot preserves over suggestions of coriander seed, fennel and chalk dust, plus a waft of orange blossoms. The palate simply sings with vibrant stone fruit and citrus peel flavors with a racy backbone cutting through the satiny texture, finishing with loads of lingering spice notes.
- Jeb Dunnuck: From a cooler site (it’s one of the last to be harvested), the 2016 Chardonnay UV-SL Vineyard is a perfect wine any way you look at it. Caramelized pineapple, marzipan, citrus, candle wax, and layers of complex Chardonnay fruit all flow to a beautifully pure, silky, perfectly balanced 2016 that has depth, freshness, complexity, and length. It develops even more complexity with time in the glass and is a brilliant effort from this estate. As with the other releases here, it was brought up in 80% new French oak.
Producer Information
Aubert is a small Chardonnay and Pinot Noir estate that makes wine from single-vineyard sites in Napa Valley and Sonoma. It was founded by Mark and Teresa Aubert in 1999, and today, is considered to be one of California’s cult producers.
The first vintage of Aubert was in 2000 – a Chardonnay sourced from the Ritchie Vineyard in Russian River Valley. It quickly received acclaim for its full-blown, hedonistic style and was pivotal for company’s success. Although the vineyard is no longer within the company’s holdings, the Burgundian syle in which the Ritchie Vineyard Chardonnay was produced, remains as the production style throughout the wine portfolio. The chardonnay wines are barrel-fermented and aged in French oak, a majority of which is new.
Aubert’s portfolio has since expanded to an array of single-vineyard Chardonnay and Pinot Noir wines, sourced from multiple vineyard sites in Russian River and Rutherford as well as Napa and Sonoma. Each wine in Aubert’s portfolio is named after the parcel of vineyard from which it is sourced and production is extremely limited. The Lauren vineyard is eight acres (3.2 hectares) of Chardonnnay, named after the founder’s daughter and was the first estate vineyard of Aubert. Today, the compnay counts over ten different vineyards within its holdings.
